Shane Watson
IPL may not be raining in sixes and fours already but Shane Watson had different ideas. Watson was brutal, showing no mercy and hammered a 185 from a mere 96 balls with scoring 150 in boundaries and closing the chase of 230 in 26 overs thereby clinching the ODI series 2-0 with one more match to go.
The only thing Shakib got right was winning the toss and his decision to bat first backfired almost immediately as Johnson’s lightening pace along with the likes of Brett Lee put the Bangladesh openers on the backfoot. Johnson had to wait little for the openers to depart after edging to Shane Watson. Hastings got his man Raquibal Hasan with a peach of a delivery to clean his stumps. Leggie Smith got rid of the skipper just when a partnership was about to build. With Nafees heading back to pavilion after making a half-century the Dhaka Warriors were left sinking at 88 for 5. Mushfiqur proved his mettle with some courageous assistance from Mahmadullah. But even before they thought of increasing the scoring rate 43 overs had already passed. The pressure plunged in and that eventually ran through the tail of Bangladesh as they could only manage to put 229 runs on the board with Mushfiqur Rahim unbeaten on 81 from just 80 balls.
The stage was all set for Watson to practice some monstrous hits gearing for his IPL-4 season debut and he grabbed the opportunity with both hands. Shakib’s early break to get rid of dangerous Haddin was the last laugh for the Bangladesh team. From pull shots to cover drives to punch off backfoot to leg glances to square drives to straight drives to on drives to sweeps, Shane Watson had played every textbook shot and assisted with some huge sixes. His innings had 15 fours and 15 sixes and had two records in the making. One the most number of sixes and the other beating Gibbs’s record of most number of runs being scored in boundaries. He notched up his 50 of 26 balls with team score at 57 and tickled his 100 of 69 balls. Watson made full use of his two dropped chances to break his previous high score of 161 with a mammoth six and 13th of his innings and breaking the previous record held by Xavier Marshall. He finished this magnificent stroke of batting display unbeaten on 185 and deservingly capped the man of the match award.
Tags: Australia, Bangladesh, Cricket, ODI Series, Shane Watson
