Bravo: We aim to please

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Cricket365
April 2, 2014

Dwayne Bravo says Twenty20 has helped reignite the passion and excitement for cricket in the Caribbean, and it is showing in the West Indies' performances.

There certainly doesn't seem to be any other team having more fun at the World Twenty20, as evidenced by the Windies' entertaining power hitting and exuberant post-match celebrations.

"All West Indians are like that, we just want to entertain our fans, most of all the people of Bangladesh come out every game and support the tournament so it's important that we give them their money's worth," said Bravo after Tuesday's victory over Pakistan sent his side into the semi-finals.

While they lost early wickets and at one stage seemed to be heading for only a par score, Bravo would combine with Darren Sammy at the tail-end of the innings to inflict some serious damage on Pakistan's bowlers.

It helped them to a highly competitive 166/6, a total which proved far too much for Pakistan's batsmen to cope with.

"We had nothing to lose, we were under pressure," said Bravo. "So I said to Sammy, as long as we stay still, don't worry about picking Ajmal or trying to rotate, just stay still, keep our eyes on the ball, we're powerful enough if we get close to the ball to hit it over the ropes.

"Our aim was to get at least 135 to 140 with the start we got but the self-belief we have, the form and the power we have, the momentum went with us, we finished positive and got to 160."

The West Indies were only 84/5 after 15 overs, but added another 82 runs from the last 30 balls. It proved to be an effective nail in Pakistan's coffin.

"This is the first game that we lost wickets in the first six overs, so we were trying to consolidate but at the same time whenever we got a boundary we keep losing a wicket again," Bravo said.

"So in the middle overs, it calmed down. We've proved ourselves, in Twenty20 cricket we know how the game plays, if you take the game right down to the end anything is possible, as long as we don't give up and keep faith and have that self-belief that if we bat 20 overs we're going to get a decent total.

"But we have to bat 20 overs, so at no point can we let what happens in the middle overs get the better of us, that comes with experience and self-belief. We still had Andre Russell and Sunil Narine to bat. It's good we did not panic at 84 for 5 and take the game all the way down to the end.

"We showed in the Australia game what the difference can make as long as we have clean hitters at the wicket, so that's our aim, that's our strong point and we use it to the best of our ability."

Captain Sammy, meanwhile, reckons his side are in with a great chance of defending the title they won in 2012, and that becoming the first team to do that has been a huge motivating factor.

"We left the Caribbean with that (winning the event) as the motivating factor for us," said the all-rounder.

"(In the) last World Cup, the mission was to win the World Cup. This year it's to retain or defend the title. It's something no team has done before. We are very confident we can do it.

"Once we play the brand of cricket we played in the last three games, there is every possibility we can.

"Twenty20 is all about momentum and seizing the right opportunity. So far we've been able to do that and hopefully we can do that against Sri Lanka."