The Barbadian all-rounder today scored 20 of the Trailblazer’s 118 for 8 that was good enough to defeat Supernovas by 16 runs in Sharjah.
Dottin and Smriti Mandhana who top scored with 68, shared in an opening stand of 17 before the Windies Women star was out in the 12th over, caught going for a big hit over deep midwicket off a Poonam Yadav delivery.
Their 50 partnership came up off just 38 deliveries with Mandhana doing the bulk of the scoring with 39.
After Mandhana got out in the 15th over, the innings fell away as Radha Yadav scythed through the remaining line up taking 5 for 16 as Trailblazers collapsed from 101 for 2 to 118 for 8.
Supernovas were never in the hunt as they lost wickets regularly, at one point being 37 for 3 after 8.2 overs.
Captain Harmanpreet Kaur (30) and Shashikala Siriwardene (19) provided a fleeting moment of hope when they took the score to 74 when things went pear-shaped. Salam Katun 3 for 18 stifled the lower order which resulted in the Supernovas limping to 102 for 7 in reply.
Shakira Selman was unbeaten on 4 at the end.
Deepti Sharma returned figures of 2 for 9.
Dottin expressed her joy afterwards.
"I have always wanted to play this tournament, and to win the tournament has been good. Indeed, the pitch was struggling a bit, but Smriti was batting really well. I was just looking to give her the strike as much as possible," she said.
Dottin was the second highest scorer in the tournament with 76 runs scored in the three matches. She averaged 38 runs per innings and had a top score of 29 not out.
Only Mandhana with 107 runs score more.
Man-of-the-Match Gayle, 41, scored a 29-ball 51 in a second-wicket stand of 100 from just 60 balls with Mandeep Singh, who top scored with an unbeaten 66 as KXIP ran out eight-wicket victors.
Gayle took 17 runs off Narine’s bowling ithat included two of his five sixes that were creamed over wide long off the Trinidadian in the 11th and 13th over, respectively. The Universe Boss just failed to remain unbeaten getting out from a slower ball from Lockie Ferguson in the 19th over with KXIP just three runs short of their target.
Narine, meanwhile, went wicketless while conceding 27 from his four overs.
Gayle said it was great to get one up against one of the best T20 bowlers in the world.
“Sunil has got me out so many times. He is the best spinner in the world. So when you get a wicket like this, when it is not turning much, you got to cash in,” Gayle said even as he praised the match-winning knock from Mandeep, who is mourning the loss of his father.
“Mandeep is going through a lot. Last game we said we want to win it for him. So beautiful to watch him in the middle pointing out to his father watching from above. And dad, my dad, I love you. Today, the coach asked the senior players, we need to step up in crucial games, I am glad we were able to put my hand up. And the youngsters in the team are telling me, 'Don't retire.'"
Gayle’s form has been on the upswing since he made his season debut for KXIP after missing out on playing during the first half of the season, partly due to a case of food poisoning that resulted in him being briefly hospitalized.
"Been training off the field when not playing. Doing my runs. Gym. Feeling good,” said Gayle, who is also optimistic about his team finishing the season well after their fifth win on the trot.
“Have a good feeling about myself and the team. Just capitalizing on it, but still a long way to go."
The Universe Boss made a 45-ball 53 before he was run-out on the penultimate ball of the match as KXIP pulled off an eight-wicket win over the Royal Challengers Bangalore in Sharjah. After a cautious start, Gayle and Player of the Match KL Rahul, who scored an unbeaten 61, put on a match-winning partnership of 93 to lift KXIP to only their second win of the season.
RCB had scored 171 for 6, setting KXIP 172 to win.
Afterwards, Gayle was his usual confident self.
“Not really nervous. I mean, come on. It's Universe Boss batting, how can I be nervous,” he said explaining that the pitch was not the best but his focus was on helping his team to a well-needed win.
“It was a very sticky surface, very slow, but it was better batting second,” he said. The team asked me to do a job at three and it wasn't an issue,” he said while explaining the team decision to have him come one down as opposed to playing in his usual spot as opener.
“(The) openers been batting well throughout the tournament and we didn't want to disturb that. Like I said, I was given a job and took it. All I was saying, put some respect on the name [by pointing to his bat sticker]. That's all.”
Captain Shai Hope showered praised on his bowlers for the clinical execution in the lop-sided victory.
“There was no hurry. They all bowled well, I can't single out too many, and I was happy with the execution,” he said. “Nice to see Hodge play in West Indies colours now and hopefully we can continue. I don't think there were devils in the surface but credit needs to be given to the bowlers.”
He reserved special praise for the Player of the Match.
“King is an exceptional player and someone who I thought would've scored a lot more runs early in his career. But happy for him. He saw the opportunity to take the game forward and happy to see him get his first hundred today,” said Hope who collected the award for King, who was suffering from cramps.
Set a target of 203, King scored a run-a-ball 112 to guide the West Indies to 206-3 from 35.2 overs in the day/night encounter. He was the last man out with the West Indies 10 runs shy of their target.
King shared in an opening stand of 48 with Johnson Charles that ended when Charles bowled for 24 while going for a big shot off Zahoor Khan delivery that cut back to hit his off stump for 24.
A 91-run second wicket partnership followed between King and Shamarh Brooks, who rode his luck before he was eventually trapped lbw by Aayan Azfal Khan for 44. King, who was dropped on 52, then took the match away from the hosts with a 54-run partnership with Keacy Carty before being last man out, caught behind off the bowling of Rohan Mustafa.
King’s knock included 12 fours and four sixes, three of which came in the 34th over bowled by Karthik Meiyappan. The second of those sixes took King from 96 to his first ODI century.
Captain Shai Hope replaced him and quickly ended proceedings with consecutive sixes off Karthik Meiyappan to end on 13 not out from just four balls. Carty was on seven from 19 balls when the match ended in the 36th over.
UAE won the toss and chose to bat and were restricted to 202 all out in 47.1 overs. Ali Naseer scored a useful 58 from 52 balls and Vriitya Aravind, a contrasting 40 from 77 balls. Asif Khan also contributed 27 against the West Indies attack led by Keemo Paul, who took 3-34.
Dominic Drakes took 2-29, Yanic Cariah weighed in with 2-26 and Odean Smith 2-40.
Batting first, Dubai Capitals mustered 152-5 from their 20 overs. In reply, MI Emirates scored 152-2 from 16.4 overs.
Dubai Capitals owed their total to George Munsey who scored 51 from 43 balls, Sikander Raza, 38, and Rovman Powell, 30. No other batter got into double figures against the tight bowling of Trent Boult 2-19 and Rashid Khan 2-20. Darren Bravo who dismissed Powell took 1-35.
Whatever struggles Dubai Capitals had on the pitch were barely evident when MI Emirates batted as Fletcher scored an unbeaten 68 from 45 balls, hitting four fours and four sixes along the way.
Pooran, who was named Player of the Match, was even better with his unbeaten 66 coming from just 36 balls and included three fours and five sixes as they raced to victory with 20 balls to spare.
Together, the Caribbean men scored 104 runs from 58 balls in what was a dominant performance.
MI restricted CSK to 114 for 9, a total largely due to a defiant 52 from all-rounder Sam Curran. Trent Boult took career-best figures of 4 for 18 and Jasprit Bumrah and Rahul Chahar each took two wickets to destroy CSK’s batting. Pollard bowled one over for four runs.
Requiring a run-rate of less than six runs an over, Player of the Match Ishan Khan smashed an unbeaten 37-ball 68 and Quinton de Kock, a 37-ball 46, in an unbroken stand of 116 to take MI to a historic 10-wicket victory.
It was the first time CSK had been beaten by 10 wickets since the IPL began in 2008.
Pollard, who assumed duties as captain after Rohit Sharma was sidelined by a hamstring injury, praised his team’s performance.
“We wanted to bowl them out under 100 but Sam batted well. I think it was a total team effort. Two-three wickets early put you in the game and to get 4-5 is fantastic. And then the openers going out and finishing off and not leaving any uncertainty was good,” Pollard said during his post-game interview.
He indicated that MI has a specific goal in mind as they aim for a fifth IPL title.
“We want to finish top two and it's a matter of getting the points and then think about the opponents,” he said indicating that the team wants to play even better.
“There's always room for improvement, myself making some mistakes on the field, guys not being aware in certain situations. Maybe it's not technical, but it's things you need to speak about.”
Asked if he enjoyed being captain, Pollard, who earlier this year led the Trinbago Knight Riders to their fourth CPL title said: “Sometimes you don't actually have to be a leader to be a leader, I know a thing or two. So it was just a matter of me stepping in and it came off tonight. It was just matter of making right decisions, not giving them freebies.”
On Friday, the 34-year-old Pollard walked off the field in the 13th over of the West Indies innings against Bangladesh but returned later to smash the last ball of the inning for six runs that proved to be crucial in the context of the Caribbean side’s narrow three-run win.
The nature of the injury remained unclear even after vice-captain Nicholas Pooran offered assurances in his post-match comments that the team captain was okay.
"He looks fine; the medical team is still working with him but he should be okay. You can see why he's a wonderful leader, walking back in to hit that last-ball six. We try to be someone like that in the future," Pooran said.
However, CWI, in a brief statement on Monday, shed further light on the health of the captain.
“Kieron Pollard sustained a muscle injury to his left thigh in the match against Bangladesh,” the statement said.
“Today (Monday) is the squad’s first training session since that encounter. Pollard is training and being assessed by the medical staff, with the aim of being ready for the match against Sri Lanka on Thursday.”
The West Indies will have to defeat Sri Lanka and Australia to have any chance of advancing to the semi-finals of the tournament after losing to both England and South Africa in their first two matches.
The West Indies are defending champions having won ICC T20 World Cup titles in 2012 and 2016.
With memories of that six-run triumph still fresh in their minds, the Caribbean side is eager to once again top the Kiwis in Sharjah on Friday to join South Africa in the showpiece event, scheduled for October 20.
Should the West Indies defeat New Zealand again, it would lay the platform for them to avenge their tournament-opening 10-wicket loss to South Africa. Since that battering, West Indies got by Scotland, Bangladesh and England on their way to the knockout stage, where they are now seeking to build on that momentum.
“I think we’re proud of what we’ve been able to achieve. No one kind of had us get to this stage, so I think we’re all pretty happy that we’ve made it here. The job’s just not finished yet and we got our eyes locked on the game tomorrow (Friday) and ready for New Zealand,” Captain Hayley Matthews said in a pre-game conference.
“Hopefully ready to play a really big game because we do want to win; we don't want to just come to this World Cup to say, ‘hey, we've made the semifinals and we're happy with that. We want to take it even further,” she added.
Experienced Jamaican batter Stafanie Taylor remains in doubt for West Indies, but Matthews’ side still possesses enough ability to pull a surprise, much like they did against England on last. In fact, with the likes of Zaida James and other rising talents currently in the squad, Matthews encouraged her peers to enjoy the moment as she recalled when she won her first World Cup title eight years ago at 18 years old.
“I think for me it was mostly just about staying calm but having fun, especially as a West Indian. I think we're always at our best when we're out there on the field, enjoying ourselves and being really vibrant in the field, and I'm just encouraging every one of the youngsters to go out there and enjoy themselves. Yeah, it's the World Cup semi-final and it's a huge game, but we're still playing the same game that we learned in the backyards of our homes and out on the streets in the Caribbean. So just enjoy it,” Matthews shared.
Despite facing tough competition, the West Indies have fought their way into the final four with a combination of gritty performances and standout individual displays, including the stellar all-round efforts of Matthews herself, along with Taylor, Qiana Joseph and Deandra Dottin, in particular.
“I think we all had the belief that we could still get the job done and the character shown within the team for us to be able to come back out there and fight. It's just about having a really good game and every single one of the players went out there and we're able to execute as we pull together as a team really well,” Matthews noted.
That said, the talented Barbadian all-rounder expressed optimism about the prospects that could come from her team winning another global T20 title.
“I really hope it helps our domestic setup. We've obviously seen the WCPL come about, which I think has made a massive difference for our girls, getting to play against some of the best cricketers in the world and playing a high-quality tournament like that.
“But for me, it's got to start right up from our individual territories, putting things in place for the girls to have proper facilities to train at and a proper structure to the point where the girls don't have to be in camp in order to get proper training. So I'd love to see if we can go out there, do really well, and hopefully we can see something like that happening for us,” Matthews explained.
But before they can get there, they will have to get by a dangerous New Zealand team.
