Posted: 2024-06-02 22:49:12

The West Indies have scraped to a nervy five-wicket win over Papua New Guinea (PNG) during the Twenty20 World Cup's first match in the Caribbean.

PNG spinners restrained their opponents' power hitters but it wasn't enough as West Indies reached a sub-par target of 137-5 with one over to spare.

Sese Bau had earlier become only the second PNG batter to score a half century at a T20 World Cup.

His 50-run knock lifted the team to 136-8 after 20 overs after West Indies captain Rovman Powell won the toss and elected to field on a spin-friendly wicket.

"Credit has to be given to PNG; their plans were simple and they played good cricket," Powell said.

PNG didn't allow West Indies to run away with the chase and had the co-hosts worried at 97-5 in 16 overs. Roston Chase made an unbeaten 42 off 27 balls and carried the team home.

"It was a competitive score but we believe we missed a trick towards the end," PNG skipper Assad Vala said. "Another 10-15 runs would have been nice."

Fast bowler Alei Nao had West Indies opener Johnson Charles trapped LBW off his first ball for a duck and could have got key batter Nicholas Pooran LBW two balls later, but PNG decided not to go for television referral before rain briefly took the players off the field in the second over.

On resumption, Brandon King (34) and Pooran (27) shared a 53-run stand before both fell in successive overs while trying to push the scoring rate as they holed out in the outfield against the spin of John Kariko (1-17) and Vala (2-28).

Powell (15) and Sherfane Rutherford (2) struggled to counterattack the spinners before getting caught behind cheaply and gave PNG a rare sniff but Chase kept a cool head and didn't let the game slip away.

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