ST. GEORGE’S, Grenada, 21 May 2004 — Devon Smith flicked a delivery from Mushfiqur Rahman through square leg for a single to formalize a West Indies seven-wicket victory over Bangladesh in their weather-affected third and final One-Day International to complete a 3-0 series sweep.
Chasing a modest target of 119 in 25 overs, West Indies hit the jackpot with five balls to spare and never looked in danger of conceding the match.
Left-hander Smith, later named man-of-the-match, hit one six and one four in the top score of 39 not out from 70 balls to anchor West Indies to the target in front of his vocal home crowd. After rain delayed the start of play by nearly four hours, Dwayne Smith unveiled another side of his cricket potential, when he captured three wickets for 24 runs from four overs to help West Indies restrict Bangladesh to 118 for seven from their reduced allotment of 25 overs.
Brief flashes of brilliance from Ricardo Powell and Dwayne Smith, the man-of-the-series winner, gave West Indies early momentum in the chase before they were dismissed to leave Devon Smith, Shivnarine Chanderpaul and West Indies captain Ramnaresh Sarwan to bring it home.
Earlier, the visitors were indebted to Habibul Bashar for giving them the backbone for a respectable total. The Bangladesh captain hit four boundaries in the top score of 42 off 45 balls. He became one of Smith’s victims after adding 47 for the third wicket with Rajin Saleh. Smith broke through when he had Saleh caught behind in the 16th over, and added Faisal Hossain and Bashar in the space of four balls in the 20th over to send Bangladesh crashing to 89 for four.
West Indies then kept a tight lid on the Bangladesh batsmen in the last five overs.
