Match Details
Only five bowlers were used by the West Indies today. Akeal Hosein was the pick of the bowlers once again with his 1-28 in 4 overs. Alzarri Joseph was brilliant today with his 2-29 in 4 overs. Jason Holder and Dominic Drakes may have been wicketless today, but they gave away only 33 and 31 runs respectively. Obed McCoy went the distance as he went for 66 in his 4 overs despite picking up a couple of wickets. He went for 25 in his opening over and things went south from thereon for him.
A comprehensive win for India by 59 runs to clinch the series 3-1 with a game to spare to be played tomorrow. Stay tuned for the post-match presentation ceremony coming your way shortly.
Arya- It was a stiff target for West Indies to chase but they had the batters in their arsenal who could take the game to the wire. The start was just what the doctor ordered for West Indies. 14 runs came of the opening over of Bhuvneshwar Kumar and West Indies got the kick-off they were after chasing a score close to the 200 mark. Brandon King looked in great touch but the introduction of Avesh Khan brought about his downfall. There was some change of pace from Avesh, the ball stopped on the surface and King ended up playing the shot with hard hands a bit too early and it was a simple return catch for Avesh Khan.
Devon Thomas was promoted up the order but he couldn’t quite make an impact. Avesh Khan bagged his second wicket as Devon Thomas mistimed a good-length delivery up in the air and Deepak Hood took a safe catch at the edge of the circle near the cover area. West Indies needed to get on with the scoring rate and the surge was provided by skipper Nicholas Pooran. He smashed 22 runs of Axar Patel’s first over to get West Indies back into the game. However, a terrible mix-up with Kyle Mayers cost him his wicket as he was run out on the last delivery of that over.
With the score reading 49/3, West Indies needed to bat sensibly as their required rate didn’t creep up. Rovman Powell and Mayers tried to resurrect the run-chase but it was some good bowling in the middle overs from India which put pressure on the Windies' middle order. Kyle Mayers wasn’t timing the ball the way he would have liked and was eventually holed out at long-off to Axar Patel after making just 14 of 16 deliveries. Powell then smoked two sixes of Axar Patel but was holed out the very next ball to a full toss. His eyes lit up there but couldn’t quite time that well.
Jason Holder got off to a brisk start and smashed a four and a six of Ravi Bishnoi but was dismissed in the very next over of Arshdeep Singh when he tried to clear the offside fence. It was a well-disguised slower delivery from Arshdeep and Holder was a bit early into the shot and found the deep cover fielder. It was always going to be an uphill task for West Indies from there on and in the end it was a mountain too steep to climb. Arshdeep Singh finished off with two searing yorkers to hand India a convincing victory.