West Indies batter Sherfane Rutherford is in some magical form in white-ball cricket as he notched up his maiden century in ODIs in the series opener against Bangladesh. Rutherford, alongside skipper Shai Hope, guided West Indies to what ended up being a comfortable run-chase of 295 runs as he followed up four consecutive 50-plus scores in the format with an 80-ball 113 as the hosts took a 1-0 lead in the three-match series.
Bangladesh owing to rapid contributions by Tanzid Hasan, Mahmudullah and Jaker Ali, got to a strong score of 294 runs. Having lost a couple of early wickets, West Indies needed a couple of their batters to go big and Hope and Rutherford met the demands by stitching a 99-run stand for the fourth wicket. Hope missed his ton by 14 runs but Rutherford didn't and thereby joined the elite list of West Indies batters to register fifty-plus scores in consecutive innings.
Rutherford became the fourth West Indies batter after the likes of Gordon Greenidge, Chris Gayle and Hope himself to score at least five consecutive fifty-plus scores in ODIs. Greenidge is the only one to have six while Sir Vivian Richards is fifth on the list with four back-to-back fifty-plus scores in ODIs.
Most consecutive fifty-plus scores for West Indies (in ODIs)
6 - Gordon Greenidge (1979-1980)
5 - Chris Gayle (2018-2019)
5 - Shai Hope (2020-2021)
5 - Sherfane Rutherford (2024)*
4 - Vivian Richards (1979-1980)
After Hope's dismissal, the top performer in the Super50 Cup, the domestic competition, Justin Greaves who earned a Test recall, played an unbeaten knock of 41 off 31 to provide the finishing touches as West Indies cruised to a terrific victory in the series opener. Bangladesh bowlers will have to pull up their socks as each one of them apart from Taskin Ahmed picked a wicket but all of them went the distance and if the visitors have to square the series, the likes of Tanzim Sakib and Nahid Rana will have to chip in.
