Dottin's fireworks in Basseterre

The World Twenty20 cricket championship is in full swing, today is the second Sunday in the action, and up to Friday, after eight days and 16 matches in the men's contest, with sixes sailing over the boundary and dropping out of the sky like rain, with some magnificent catches taken, with five wickets falling in one over for no runs, and with six sixes coming off six successive deliveries, three in one over and three in the following over, from one bowler, the action has been sizzling.

In fact, the only thing that was missing in Guyana, St Lucia, and Barbados was the unexpected - the surprise or two that usually accompanies a limited-over tournament.

Although the batsmen from some of the fancied teams, including the West Indies, England, Australia, and South Africa were embarrassed, or should have been, by the bowlers of teams like Ireland and Afghanistan, the top teams, all of them, made it through to the Super Eight stage.

In spite of the rain in Guyana, and the dreaded Duckworth-Lewis scoring system used in affected matches, England, with two rain-ruined matches, squeezed through, and so far, so good.

The battle for places in the semi-finals is still on, and although they were blown away by Sri Lanka on Friday, the West Indies are still in it, and with each team playing three matches in the second round, with two teams from each of the two groups going into the semi-finals, so too are former champions India despite being swept aside by Australia.

Who will win it? That is still difficult to say, but the Aussies, led by Shane Watson and David Warner at the top of their batting, seem awesome.

What about the West Indies? Well, their bowlers were forced to rescue them against lowly Ireland, their bowlers got a beating against England and Sri Lanka, their batting is still to fire, and their fielding, especially so their catching and more so against Sri Lanka, has been disappointing.

WI might win

Such is the hit or miss situation with the shortest version of the game, however, that any number can play, the West Indies can still win, and might, because of the possibility of Christopher Gayle, probably because I am a West Indian, my money, a few dollars out of the little I have, is still on the Windies going all the way, or very close.

So far, fielding, and especially so catching, has been the high point of the tournament, as it is in almost every Twenty20 match, the bowling has been almost entirely defensive, and as it almost always is, the batting has been swinging the bat and hoping - as it undoubted was by the Afghanistan batsman against the pacers of South Africa.

Occasionally, however, there were a few copybook, authentic, and classy strokes, and none more so than a stream of them by India's Suresh Raina while stroking a century off 60 deliveries against South Africa and by Sri Lanka's Mahela Jayawardene while picking the pockets of Zimbabwe in an innings of 100 runs off 64 deliveries, and while blasting the West Indies for 98 not out off 56 deliveries.

Apart from the calculated power-hitting by Watson who hit sixes at will whether he is batting in a Twenty20 match, a 50-over contest, or in a Test match, there were also two innings of near perfect stroke play by Eion Morgan of England, one against the West Indies and one against Ireland, his motherland.

In the women's tournament in St Kitts, there was at least one memorable, probably unforgettable, performance in the three days of competition.

While all of the matches in the men's contest were on television, not one of the matches in the women's contest was on television, at least not in Jamaica, and that meant I did not see Deandra Dottin's masterpiece last Wednesday, on the opening day of the women's competition.

Women cannot bat as good as men can, they cannot bowl as fast, they cannot spin the ball as much, in the field they cannot do what men can do, and as far as I am concerned, women cricketers cannot be compared to cricketers of the opposite gender.

Women cricketers, as good as they may be, cannot compete with men cricketers, and it is the same in almost every other sport, including a sport like tennis where Serena Williams and company cannot serve as fast, cannot hit the ball as hard, and cannot move as quickly as Roger Federer and company, or in another sport like track and field where Shelly-Ann Fraser cannot run as fast as Usain Bolt.

Dottin a star

Playing together, however, against their own bowling and their own batting, women look good, they do the basics right, they are worth watching, they are really entertaining, and they are champions.

In cricket, in Jamaica, Stafanie Taylor is a star, and last Wednesday, Dottin became a star.

Walking in the shadow of Taylor, Jamaica's Cricketer of the Year for 2009, for the past year or so, Dottin, a Barbadian, like Taylor, an 18-year-old youngster, lit up Warner Park in Basseterre with a century innings during the women's contest.

In fact, it was the first century in the women's Twenty20 game.

I never saw the innings so I cannot describe the shots. My imagination tells me, however, that they must have been magical.

Going to bat with the West Indies struggling at 52 for four after 9.2 overs, Dottin proceeded to smash 112 not out off 45 deliveries in 40 minutes with seven fours and nine sixes at a strike rate of an amazing 2.489.

That was awesome, and but for the difference in the standard of the bowling and the fielding, it was more dominant than Chris Gayle's innings against South Africa in 2007.

In that innings, the first century in the men's World Twenty20, Gayle scored 117 off 57 deliveries with seven fours and 10 sixes against South Africa in 2007.

With 64 legitimate deliveries remaining in the innings when she went to bat, the figures indicate that Dottin totally dominated the action. Not only did she bat 45 of those 64 deliveries, but with the West Indies reaching 170 for five at the end of the innings after she had joined the action at 52 for four, she also scored all but 18 of the runs scored by the West Indies during her stay at the crease.

In scoring her first 50 off 25 deliveries with three fours and three sixes, she must have been awesome. In scoring her second 50 in 13 deliveries with four fours and six sixes, Dottin must have been simply magnificent.

"When I saw the overs slipping away from us, I decided to go after everything. It was either do-or-die," said the courageous young lady.

Her words reminded me of those by Roy Fredericks when in 1975, after scoring 169 off 145 deliveries with 27 fours and one six against Australia with Denis Lillee and Jeff Thomson in a Test match at Perth, he told me minutes afterwards, "It was them or me."

 

Tony Becca, FROM THE BOUNDARY