West Indies defeated Papua New Guinea by 5 wickets. Emerging from the struggle, Andre Russell and Roston Chase rescued their team from difficulty in the last overs and gave them victory. Papua New Guinea, playing first, put 136 runs on the scoreboard, which included Sese Bau’s innings of 50 runs in 43 balls. Kiplin Doriga also played a cameo innings of 27 runs in 18 balls in the last overs. The first 15 overs were a struggle for West Indies, who came to chase the target. But the 18 runs in the 18th over changed the course of the match. Captain Assad Vala took the maximum of 2 wickets for Papua New Guinea. Roston Chase scored 42 runs in 27 balls, during which 4 fours and 2 sixes came from his bat. Andre Russell also contributed 15 runs in 9 balls.
West Indies, chasing a target of 137 runs, lost the wicket of Johnson Charles in the second over itself, who became a victim of a golden duck in his T20 World Cup debut match. Nicholas Pooran escaped LBW out in the second over itself. Pooran scored a total of 18 runs in the last over of the powerplay, hitting 2 sixes and a four. In the powerplay overs, West Indies’ score was 52 runs for one wicket. Meanwhile, Nicholas Pooran got out while playing a big shot. Pooran scored 27 runs in 27 balls and shortly after that Papua New Guinea captain Assad Vala got Brandon King caught out on a score of 34 runs. After this, captain Rovman Powell came to the crease to take responsibility, but due to the slow run rate, he got out while playing a big shot. Powell scored 15 runs. In 15 overs, West Indies had scored 94 runs after losing 4 wickets and the team needed 43 runs in the last 5 overs. The trouble for WI increased when Sherfan Rutherford was also out after scoring just 2 runs. Roston Chase was still at the crease and Andre Russell took the responsibility from the other end. The team needed 31 runs in the last 3 overs, but West Indies had almost confirmed their victory by scoring 18 runs in the 18th over. By scoring 13 runs in the 19th over, West Indies won their first match in the T20 World Cup 2024 with 6 balls to spare.
The most interesting statistic of the match
In this match, Johnson Charles was playing his first match for West Indies and Ali Nao for Papua New Guinea. Nao bowled the second over of the innings, on the very first ball of which Johnson Charles was out LBW. Ali Nao had taken a wicket on his very first ball in the World Cup. This wicket was also very interesting because Johnson Charles got out on the very first ball in his T20 World Cup debut.