West Indies won the match by 5 wickets and levelled the series 1-1
Obed McCoy’s record six-wicket haul with Brandon King’s half-century, West Indies finally register a victory in India vs West Indies T20I series at Warner Park Stadium in St Kitts, Monday. Decided to field first on the tricky pitch, West Indies restricted India to just 138 runs with their powerful bowlers. It is the first time that West Indies managed to beat India at home in the T20 format since 2017.
Obed McCoy returned to the game with his career-best six-wicket heave that give the Windies a chance to come back in the second half. India struggled with the bat and they didn’t get enough runs on the board even though they easily won the first T20 match by 68 runs.
India’s inning were too bad as Obed McCoy struck skipper Rohit Sharma on his first delivery. Soon, in the second over itself, he dismissed Suryakumar Yadav. Shreyas Iyer (10 of 11) and Rishabh Pant (24 of 12) tried to get a hold of the ground but went out early.
Hardik Pandya was the top scorer for India with 31 runs. Pandya tried his best for a while and added 2 sixes to the scoreboard. Ravindra Jadeja also crossed the 20-run mark. Dinesh Karthik failed to play his finisher’s role as India’s batting collapsed miserably. India bowled out for 138 runs in 19.4 overs.
Alzarri Joseph (1/29), Akeal Hosein (1/22), and Jason Holder (1/23) also held a wicket each for the Windies.
In return, chasing a moderate target of 139 runs, Brandon King and Kyle Mayers set the stage for Windies with a 46-run opening stand, a perfect start with the bat. But Mayers was bowled out by Pandya and Ashwin just after the powerplay.
West Indies skipper Nicholas Pooran was also bowled out by Ashwin in the 10th over while they were motoring nicely towards a comfortable win. But King continued to devastate the Indian bowling attack as he scored a total of 68 runs from 52 balls. Hetmyer too could not last for long, as he was removed by Jadeja and Arshdeep Singh.
India made an excellent comeback here even though West Indies were in a comfortable position with just 38 needed off 30 balls with 7 wickets remaining. But the wicket of King brought some panic as they needed 10 runs in the last over.
Arshdeep was the star at the end as he restricted Windies with 1/10 in the last two death overs. He set up the match with 10 runs needed in the last over, but Rohit Sharma made a wrong decision as he handed over the last over to Avesh Khan instead of the experienced Bhuvneshwar Kumar.
The over proved to be wrong as Avesh Khan yielded a no-ball in the first ball and the free hit went for a six. Devon Thomas rescued Windies with a boundary and a six to finish the game. West Indies pull off a last-over thriller as they won the match sparing 4 balls.
If that first ball was not been a no-ball, the game could have a different ending. But Rohit backed his decision to give the final over to Avesh Khan.
Rohit said, “It is all about giving opportunities to these guys. We know what Bhuvi does for us. He has been doing it for years. Unless you give chances to guys like Avesh and Arshdeep you’ll never know. But it is just one game. They have the skills and the talent and it is all about backing them. I am really proud of the bowlers and the team. I thought the guys executed the plans and really happy with the way the guys bowled,”
He added that “Firstly, there weren’t enough runs on the board. We didn’t bat well. The pitch was playing nicely but we didn’t apply ourselves. But this can happen. When you are doing something as a batting group, you might not always succeed. But we will learn from this. We won’t panic. We won’t change anything after one loss,”
It was a very pleasing game for West Indies as they will continue the same approach in the next game to win over India. On the other hand, team India is fully confident of their capabilities. Let’s wait and watch what will happen in the 3rd T20 today at Warner Park.
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