After a breakout season, King was immediately called up to the West Indies white ball squads to face Afghanistan and India in India in 2019. King’s CPL star quality, however, faded in international cricket, and he was barred from the whole of the West Indies. -up after these passages in 2019 and 2020.
Having then made his comeback on a tour of Pakistan in December 2021, King is rising once again, but as a mid-ranked hitter.
King had started his career as a mid-level hitter for Jamaica, and after having two productive top-class seasons, he was chosen for a similar role in the West Indies A-team in August 2019. He also started his CPL career in the middle. command for St Kitts & Nevis Patriots before Botha turned it into a hard-hitting first game at Amazon Warriors.
He came out at bat at No. 4 after the West Indies were 133-2 in their 309 chase. Shamarh Brooks had just finished for 46, and two overs later King watched Kyle Mayers chase a wide ball and the slash behind for 75 When Nicholas Pooran and then Rovman Powell also fell, West Indies were 196 for 5 in 37th place.
King, however, didn’t panic and just focused on hunting deep with the lower middle order. He likes the pace on the ball and has been vulnerable to rotations in the past, but worked around that potential weakness on a Port of Spain box that slowed down considerably in the second set.
King took 34 of 39 balls against Yuzvendra Chahal and Axar Patel before Chahal finally passed him. As Axar was just finding some grip and turning, King unsettled him by rushing out of the crease and slamming him with the flip of the extra coverage. Then, when Chahal got too wrong with his bad shot, he got on his knees and swept it over the midwicket for a six.
“It’s not too much about beating India. It’s just about our batting formula and how you want to play cricket.”
Brandon King on a narrow defeat in the first ODI
When the Asked Rate went over ten, King decided to take another shot at Chahal, but the spinner hid a wide leg out of his reach and forced him to tilt a hold into deep coverage.
Fittingly, Pollard was present at the Queen’s Park Oval to watch King flourish in international cricket. Another day King could have finished him off for the West Indies, but he took his dismissal and the other first wickets in his stride.
“Even if they [India] scored over 300 goals, that was a nice wicket at bat,” King said in the post-game press conference. That’s all I tried to do.
“We’ve always believed that if we take the game down to the last five overs, we’ve got the guys who can chase any total, and I think [Romario] Berger and Akéal [Hosein] showed that today we are still in the game. [We] would have liked some of the early wickets not to fall and we could have had some of the batsmen there at the end; but that’s part of the game.”
West Indies still have plenty of batting holes to fill – with or without the likes of Shimron Hetmyer and Evin Lewis – but Friday’s chase was a sign of their progress, and perhaps cause for alarm for India .
“It’s not too much about beating India,” King said. “It’s just about our batting formula and how you want to play cricket. Getting the game down to the last ball by chasing over 300 balls was good for us. Another day we’d be over the line.”
Deivarayan Muthu is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo