Shai Hope, The Only Shinning Armour In An Otherwise Lackluster Windies Batting Lineup

Windies Cricket is no longer the force they were at the peak of their prowess back in the 70s-80s and even mid 90s. For over two decades, the 'Calypso Kings' have been marred by spree of inconsistent performances and have at best been challengers to the big guns in one day international arena.

Post, the Lara-Ambrose-Walsh era, the 'Maroon Brigade' had exponents with the willow who were explosive swashbucklers in Chris Gayle, Marlon Samuels, Dwayne Bravo, Andre Russell and Kieron Pollard, who in every sense were great entertainers and outright match winners in the T20 format but certainly fell short on application to replicate their heroics in the limited overs format.

Amidst a galaxy of belligerent power hitters, who produced flashes of brilliance there is a rare exception in the Windies batting arsenal who goes about his business in a rather  subdued fashion but usually gets the job done to take his team across the finishing line .

One can call him the gluing factor, hail him as the team's workhorse or the run grafter for the 'Maroon Brigade', he is none other than the classy and elegant wicket-keeper batsman Shai Hope.

In an era where Windies batsman go about their business with their trademark 'bang bang bang' swagger right from ball one...Hope brings in that much required calm and stability to their electrifying yet inconsistent  batting. A technically sound batsman with loads of patience and grit, Hope has slowly but surely established a mark for himself among the premier batsman in white ball cricket.

There have been instances a plenty where the Windies top order has been in complete disarray with Hope standing tall and bailing his team out of a crisis situation, reasserting and rebuilding with utmost calm and composure.

For the record, Hope is on the crossroads of scaling the 3000-run milestone and has brought up those runs at a staggering average of over 50, the lone Windies batsman to boast of such run scoring prowess in white ball cricket for quite some time now.

Hopes' seven ODI tons to go along with his 14 half centuries in the shorter format have further enhanced his credentials as a player who can go the distance to finish off games once he gets his eye in.

More importantly, Hope is the sole Windies batsman to feature among the ICC Top 20 ODI batsmen list alongside the best of this era in Kohli, Williamson, Root, Warner, Azam, De Cock to name a few.

However, a closer look into his batting statistics reveal that bulk of his heavy run scoring has been against relatively weaker opponents in Afghanistan and Bangladesh. However, he has put up some fine performances against quality Indian and English bowling attacks, despite his well-known struggles against the moving ball in seaming conditions.

Indeed, after a long time  Windies have a quality batsman who can play the sheet anchor's role both opening the inning and playing at the crucial number three slot in ODIs. Back in the 90s and early 2000s, they had world class run accumulators in Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Ramnaresh Sarwan who played the perfect foil to their more aggressive and flamboyant stroke makers. Over the last decade, a lot of hopes were rested on the wristy southpaw Darren Bravo to don a similar role but he could not quite stitch together scores to match his potential with performances.

The Windies eventually have a class act in their batting armory but the major difference is that while the batting genius  Lara had plenty of support from the other end from Richardson, Hooper, Chanderpaul and Adams;  and the explosive Gayle had some solid batting partners in the form of Ramnaresh Sarwan, Wavell Hinds, Marlon Samuels, Bravo brothers and Pollard; Hope has been the lone bright spot  in a rather unsettling and inconsistent batting order for quite some time now.

For Hope to string together match winning performances for the 'Maroon Brigade', the Windies top order comprising of destructive batsmen in Ewin Lewis, Shimron Hetmeyer and Nicholas Pooran will have to revamp their typical firebrand approach to batting with a bit of caution and play around Hope.

The Windies need to have a method around their madness in the middle order as they have plenty of firepower down the order with some power-hitters in Andre Russell, Kieron Pollard, Jason Holder and Rowman Powell, to always unleash lethal carnage lower down the order.

With their ageing batting stalwart Chris Gayle calling it quits anytime soon and not much experience in the Windies batting unit to follow, Hope could well be seen as the guiding light to torch the young and talented brigade of batsmen who can become stars for the future if mentored and groomed properly.

With the Windies seam bowling gelling into somewhat a  well-knit unit with Kemar Roach, Shannon Gabriel, Sheldon Cottrell, Jason Holder and Oshane Thomas, it is now really upto Hope if he can really take on the mantle of being the nucleus of the batting unit and help Windies get past their batting woes to become a competitive force in ODI cricket.