Darren Sammy, the first St. Lucian to play for West Indies has out of a sudden become an integral part of the West Indian side, though not getting the credits he deserves.The reason being very obvious, the presence of many super stars of the limited overs , who on their day takes away all the credits.
He might not be a very effective Test match player , but when it comes to the limited overs , he is more than handy. His useful wicket to wicket bowling , keeping it steady in the middle overs was what earned him a place in the West Indian line up. But slowly, he worked hard on his batting and now he is a lethal one down the order.. But due to some unknown reasons , he is just not doing justice with his bowling.
His journey in the West Indian team has not been very rosy. After an average start to his International career, he was promoted to lead the side, much to the surprise of the experts. It was a time when the relationship between Gayle and the Board was not the best and no one else seemed good enough to hold this post. The factor against Sammy was his position in the playing 11, as he was not a sure shot candidate in the 11 always. But, the officials went for him and to be fare , he has led to some sort of revival of the West Indian cricket, atleast in the limited overs.He was sidelined from the captaincy role in the Champions Trophy but showed a lot of heart and charecter when he got his share of chance in the team.
With the T20 World Cup in the sub continent, his style of bowling will suit it. Adding to it is his brutal batting lower down the order, which is second to none in the tournament. His innings against Australia just shows the power of the man. The best part of his batting is that he lloks to hit it straight and backs his power to clear the rope. Most of his sixes are in the straight mid on or mid off region, rather than widish one.
But it seems that Captain Sammy is just overtaking player Sammy. With his batting form , he is somehow resisting the temptation to promote himself up the order. It has something to take with the fact that his failure may well be related to him being the captain and mis-using his power.
But what ever it may be, he can still turn around a T20 game on his own, like he did against the Aussies. With West Indies now facing Pakistan , which in all sense will be a knock out, he can cause much panic in the Pakistan dug out with his all round skills.
