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Rovman Powell Has Had A Strikingly Good 2023 in T20Is, But There Are New Challenges Ahead

image-lqi54hofRovman Powell celebrating his half century [X.com]

In a year that saw the West Indies cricket suffer the most horrible outcome in its failure to qualify for the 2023 ODI World Cup, Rovman Powell's most recent triumph has lifted the spirits of a team that ensured a lot this year. 

In what was a third T20 series triumph this year, a feat that actually didn't happen ever in the post-COVID era, Rovman Powell's men, in the briefest format of the game, seem like a seriously competitive force.

All of this augurs well for the team that plays hosts in the forthcoming T20 World Cup 2024, which will arrive sooner than one expects, given the rapidly changing vagaries of the game. 

In some sense, it complements Powell's own batting, an exhibition of brutal hitting that is accompanied by serious sir hitting and changing of gears. 

Truth be told, in the five-game series just recently completed at the Brian Lara stadium in Trinidad, Ravi Powell, as he's dearly called, was in no mood to go quiet with the bat. 

A tally of 132 runs from 5 innings that included a fifty and a not-out score suggested that the Windies captain produced an effort that warranted respect, and respect it is that it earned.  

Maybe those who've questioned Powell's seven crore grab in the forthcoming IPL 2024 season can find some merit in his current form. 

Powell actually improved versus England, lest it is forgotten when it comes to the run tally achieved against India in those T20Is that also featured five games. On that occasion, he scored 110 from 5 games and, rather surprisingly, didn't score even a single fifty. 

But not on this occasion, as the powerful Jamaican, whose confidence somewhere might have been boosted by the return of his compatriot Russell to the squad, scored a rapturous 28-ball-50 in just the second contest of the series, which resulted in a nervy win for his Windies. 

But having said all of that, the greatest earning in Powell's ebb is the fact that under his captaincy, the West Indies haven't lost a single T20I series they played this year. Arguably speaking, there are more expensive things that one can hope to receive from Santa around Xmas, but this latest 3-2 series triumph would be the sweetest and one-of-a-kind. 

Remember, it was not too long ago in the T20 World Cup stage where the English dumbed and hammered the West Indies for a horribly low score of 55 all out in the UAE. That was an event where the team from the Caribbean failed to play even fifteen overs of their twenty. Just the kind of outcome they'd hope to avoid in what lies ahead in 2024. 

image-lqi5c9tyPowell starred with the bat for WI vs ENG [AP]

And what does is fundamentally, their biggest battle cry; the quintuplet of Shai Hope, Nicholas Pooran, Brandon King, Rovman Powell and Romario Shepherd will hold such a key job with the bat. 

Here's where Powell's challenge becomes all the more interesting. While on the one hand, he'll have to sit with the team management to decide whether or not to feature the exceptionally talented but surprisingly underperforming Shimron Hermyer, another Windies talent who's struggling to come good despite obvious talent; he'll also have to decide what's his most judicious bowling make up. 

Does Jason Holder- athletic, experienced, and horribly underperforming with the white ball, as seen recently- warrant a go? 

Here's something worth looking at. In his last 3 T20I series, Jason Holder, whose heart still beats for the West Indies, picked two wickets from as many T20Is versus the Proteas, four wickets from as many games against the Indians and six wickets from 5 T20Is against the English. 

In so doing, big Jase conceded a bowling economy north of 11, 7.3 and, as seen most recently, 10.3 against England. Does that show a menacing white-ball form? He gave away 90 runs from 8 overs in the Protea land while being hammered for over 200 runs from just 19.3 overs in the recent England contests. 

Powell would be thinking. He can't help it; he'll have to think what to do. Indeed, the return of Dre Russ powers his Windies' lower middle order, but at the same time, the game-changing all-rounder is missing; can Shepherd alone do the magic? 

With this and, more importantly, the winning mantra returning to his grasp, Rovman Powell enters a brand new year at the back of what has been a period of sterling success, most notably under his own captaincy. And that wouldn't make him complain much, even as he realises there are a few issues to resolve before the massive 2024 World Cup campaign arrives.