Daren Sammy has been saying it for weeks. "I feel something special is about to happen." He might have repurposed a version of that speech when he went out to the middle at the drinks break on Monday. Because from that point on, the man he patted on the back saw out two balls, then went 6, 6, 6, dot, 6, wide, 6. And just like that Shimron Hetmyer had made the quickest fifty by a West Indies batter in T20 World Cups. His celebration included a salute to the dugout. Was it for his coach?
Ten years ago, standing inside the team bus with the rest of his two-time champions, Sammy gave shout-outs "to Shimron Hetty-myer and his team" and "to Stafanie Taylor and her team" because they had won World Cups too. "Hetty" had captained the Under-19s to the title. Back then, he was happy to go six Youth ODIs with just two sixes in the bag. Out here, he was visibly wincing when the ball evaded his swinging arc. The wide in that sequence - 6, 6, 6, dot, 6, wide, 6 - is going to give him nightmares. Zimbabwe will get theirs from everything else.
It had begun so well for them. They'd got Richard Ngarava back. Sikandar Raza had said all he'd do was ask Ngarava if he was ready, and slot him straight back in if he said he was, whether the team doctor signed off or not. Before the toss, one of West Indies' greatest-ever cricketers, Courtney Walsh, had been in Ngarava's ear, and at that point it looked like he was running in gingerly, like the injury that had kept him out of Zimbabwe's games against Australia and Sri Lanka was still bothering him. Should've known better. Curtly talk to no man. Courtney talk to no bench player.
Ngarava and Blessing Muzarabani pitched very little in the batters' half in the first two overs. West Indies were 7 for 0. Then Hetmyer hit back. The very first ball after all this pressure created the wicket that brought him in, he played one of those flicks that look like they require no effort at all. It flew to the boundary. Zimbabwe had been warned.
Hetmyer gave them a chance to get him out on 7 but Tashinga Musekiwa lost the ball in the lights. From there on, the only people with any hope of getting their hands on it were in the crowd at the Wankhede. One of them did. Hetmyer's swipe over square leg - the fourth six in 6, 6, 6, dot, 6, wd, 6 - the one before the one that took him to fifty, landed right in his lap. Dion Myers was no more than five yards away from the guy in the grey t-shirt who caught the ball. All he could do was ask for it back.
For a long time, Hetmyer had been typecast as a batter best suited to play the death overs. Rajasthan Royals sometimes even sent R Ashwin ahead of him, and justified it by saying they were providing their finisher a better point of entry and more clarity of purpose.
In the absence of Nicholas Pooran, who retired from international cricket last year, West Indies have trusted Hetmyer with the far broader canvas of the No. 3 role.
Shai Hope explained the reasoning behind the move at the post-match press conference. "Yeah, well, [Hetmyer] is a quality player. And the way he's batting, I think sometimes he's kind of wasted batting down the bottom of the innings. He's such a good player, he can bat in all situations, spin and pace. And to utilise him in that [middle] phase, he comes up and plays with that freedom that we want him to play with. So he's been an asset for us, especially in this tournament."
Zimbabwe had ridden a great wave into the Super Eights. Raza had guided them here and put himself up to do it again. Even after being hit for 20 runs in his first over, he came back to try and break the partnership between Hetmyer and Rovman Powell. If it had worked, he would have looked like a genius. This is T20 cricket. Five yards separate joy from resignation. Gut feeling not paying off turns hero to victim.
West Indies tried hitting almost half the balls they faced up in the air - 46 out of 120 - 35 of them after Sammy's little intervention. They finished with the joint-highest tally of sixes in a Men's T20 World Cup game (19). Hetmyer was responsible for seven of them. His 85 off 34 was a beautiful and brutal rendition of how much strength matters in this format of cricket. And the confidence to use it without second thought. Every time Hetmyer wanted to go, that backlift went all the way up over his head and came down with no force left behind. There was finesse too, in a couple of back cuts that needed him to hold his shape and wait for the ball to place it behind point.
All this combined into an innings befitting the men against whom West Indies No. 3s will be measured. Somewhere, Pooran and Marlon Samuels may have been watching with smiles on their faces. They'd better be careful though. Hetty's on their tail.