Windies had a horrendous Indian tour and barring 2 ODIs, they were below par. When it turned to T20 series, one would expect Windies to be competitive but they were not so much. Windies showed some fight with their bowling in the matches, not good enough to win a match in this format. As their captain said, three noughts look bad, but we fought hard.
The downfall of Windies continued in the final T20 with a good batting show by India. This time though, Shikhar Dhawan changed rolls with his captain.
Windies Innings:
It started so typical with some stylish shots from a zesty player, Shai Hope. Alongside him, Shimron Hetmyer looked good too. They helped Windies to end the powerplay on a high. Both fell down in a quick succession when Chahal was introduced and he did the damage in the absence of Kuldeep Yadav. Ramdin’s run a ball inning of 15 ended after edging a Washington Sundar’s flat ball onto his sticks.
Then innings was decorated with a good partnership between Darren Bravo and Nicholas Pooran who made his maiden fifty in the process. His fireworks found Windies on a 181 runs place. Nicholas Pooran showed his big hitting and innovation to go along his batting style.
Indian Innings:
Indian innings started on a simple note and Rohit gets off the mark with a boundary on the first ball. Soon, he was gone after mistimed a drive into the hands of opposite captain. It was Shikhar Dhawan who stepped up after the demise of Rohit Sharma to better his stats in the series. Rahul supported him in this regard but eventually fell trying a fancy drive of Oshane Thomas to nick it into keeper’s mitts.
Rishabh Pant opposed the Nicholas Pooran innings by making his Maiden fifty with some thumping shots as he plays them with hard hands and full bat flow, believing on power than timing. The fiery partnership between him and Shikhar went on to push any kind of scares behind. Until a not so good scoop-try got his sticks rattled with 7 needed off 11. Manish Pandey’s conceding 3 dot balls, put the match in the last over.
Shikhar Dhawan lofted one on the penultimate ball into the hands of long on and BAM!!! Comes the hopes of a super over for Windies with India requiring 1 of 1 ball. A single at the end saw them home with ease but super over became on the cards from nowhere. The burning coals of hopes were watered on the last ball of the match for the Windies.
