West Indies vs Australia, 1st T20I - Live Cricket Score, Commentary

Series: Australia tour of West Indies, 2021 Venue: Daren Sammy National Cricket Stadium, Gros Islet, St Lucia Date & Time: Jul 09, 07:30 PM LOCAL

Nicholas Pooran is captaining in the absence of Kieron Pollard, who has a hamstring niggle. © Getty

West Indies win by 18 runs

Let that sink in. Australia had 70 in the PowerPlay chasing 145. Mitchell Marsh scored his maiden T20I half-century and took Australia to 108/4 in the 11th over. They had no right to lose that from there, yet they did. Obed McCoy continues his great season (9 wickets in the SA series) with 4/26 here. Hayden Walsh Jr. took 3/23 and Australia lost 6 for 19 to lose a match they had in their grasp.

West Indies go 1-0 up in this five-match series!

What they said:

Nicholas Pooran: What a game. First game as captain, wasn't expecting it. We didn't get as much as we wanted. We asked the guys for energery and that's what we got. After the first two overs, we wanted to assess and it's tough to go with proper momentum. Russ coming and finishing off, what better than that today. Can't give them (bowlers) enough credit. They (Australia) came out firing, but we asked the bowlers to attack and keep asking questions.

Aaron Finch: The bowlers did a fantastic job, especially in the powerplay. The line and lengths they bowled were exceptional, they made most of the conditions out there. After the position Marsh and Wade got us into, I thought we panicked a bit. We have been working on batting aggressively in the middle overs, but today we probably had to adapt better. Thought the pitch actually got better in the second innings, the ball came through nicely and that made this (loss) very disappointing because we need only around 4 runs per over for most parts. Just need to dust this game off and be ready for the next match tomorrow.

and in solidarity with the @windiescricket team like coach Justin Langer suggested they would

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Pollard out with a niggle; Finch elects to field

Nicholas Pooran is captaining the West Indies in the opener. Hayden Walsh and Fabien Allen are back. Finch sticks to the T20 doctrine upon winning the toss. He expects this new pitch at St Lucia to be good for 20 overs.

Teams:

West Indies (Playing XI): Lendl Simmons, Evin Lewis, Chris Gayle, Shimron Hetmyer, Nicholas Pooran(w/c), Andre Russell, Dwayne Bravo, Fabian Allen, Hayden Walsh, Obed McCoy, Fidel Edwards

Australia (Playing XI): Aaron Finch(c), Matthew Wade(w), Mitchell Marsh, Josh Philippe, Moises Henriques, Ben McDermott, Daniel Christian, Ashton Agar, Mitchell Starc, Adam Zampa, Josh Hazlewood

Prelude 1st T20I

Hello and Welcome to the Live Blog of the first T20I between Australia and West Indies. This is the T20 World Cup year, so every game is important and a lesson to learn from. These old rivals haven't played each other in the format since the 2014 World T20. So there is curiousity over how they'll match-up against each other.

Bharat Sundaresan sets up the series perfectly in this piece.