DHAKA: West Indies finally confirmed their entry into quarter-finals of the ICC World Cup 2015 by beating United Arab Emirates (UAE) by six wickets at Napier Sunday.

A haul of four and three wickets by Jason Holder, and Jerome Taylor respectively coupled with Johnson Charles’ and Jonathan Carter’s pair of fifties helped the Caribbean team win the Pool-B match.

To confirm the knockout stage West Indies required the win in the match within 36.2 overs. But they reached UAE-set 176-run target in 30.3 overs for four.

Chasing the target, Dwayne Smith began the West Indies’ innings with Johnson Charles on the other end of the crease. UAE’s Nasir Aziz bowled the first over.

West Indies lost early wickets. Dwayne Smith (15) and Marlon Samuels (33) went back to the pavilion.

Charles and Carter hit fifty each, scoring 55 runs off 40 balls and 50 runs off 58 balls respectively. Denesh Ramdin and Dawayen Smith contributed 33 and 10 runs respectively.

UAE’ Amjad Javed and Manjula Guruge took two wickets each.

Earlier, UAE scored 175 runs all out in 47.4 overs. Only three batsmen reached the double digit, including two fifties. 

Amjad Javed and Nasir Aziz scored 56 runs and 60 runs.

West Indies’ Holder and Taylor pocketed four and three wickets respectively while Andre Russell and Marlon Samuels bagged two and one wickets correspondingly.

Prior to beginning of the match, West Indies captain Jason Holder won the toss and decided to bowl. The match kicked off at McLean Park at 4:00am Bangladesh time.
Wining West Indies captain Jason Holder become the Man of the Match. He said: “The ball came out really well for me at the start, also got some good bounce. Just concentrated on bowling in the right areas. It was a bit slow, but I was happy to get some movement. Extremely pleased with how the games came out to play.”

“It was a must-win and we were able to accomplish it. We had to show the intent and try to finish the game before 36 overs, which we were able to achieve. NZ are obviously playing some very good cricket, so we will look ahead to that if we are able to make it to the quarter-finals”, Holder added.

Defeated UAE captain Mohammed Tauqir said: “When they put us in to bat, they took good advantage of the bowling conditions. 40-odd for 6 was tough to recover from, but Nasir and Amjad batted well in the end. Amjad has been very consistent for us throughout the tournament, both with the bat and ball.”

“So some positives from this World Cup. We have the T20 World Cup qualification ahead of us in July. It was a decent performance from us in this tournament. It was a good learning experience for us. It was very enjoyable, but there was a lot of traveling to do,” Tauqir added.

BDST: 1120 HRS, MAR 15, 2015