India twice rallied while the West Indies imploded on a bouncy Narendra Modi Stadium pitch on Friday to hand the hosts their first-ever ODI series whitewash over the Caribbeans at home. After opting to bat, India suffered two mini collapses but managed to post their highest total—265 all out in 50 overs—of the three-match ODI series.
Rohit Sharma (13), Virat Kohli (0) and Shikhar Dhawan (10) were back in the pavilion for 42 at end of the 10th over. Then, within the space of 44 balls, Rishabh Pant (56, 54 balls, 6x4, 1x6), Suryakumar Yadav (6, 7 balls, 1x4) and Shreyas Iyer (80, 111 balls, 9x4) fell adding only 35 runs. They rebuilt their innings calmly to come out of the crisis.
Iyer survived anxious moments and a shaky start in the company of the more assured Pant as the two led India’s first recovery with a 110-run fourth wicket partnership in 124 balls. With six down for 187, India’s position looked shaky but Deepak Chahar (38, 38 balls, 4x4, 2x6) and Washington Sundar (33, 34 balls, 2x4, 1x6) rescued them with a seventh wicket partnership (53 runs in 51 balls).
On the other hand, after Mohammed Siraj (3-29) trapped Shai Hope leg before in the fourth over, Deepak Chahar (2-41), Prasidh Krishna (3-27) and Kuldeep Yadav (2-51) bagged two wickets each, leaving the Windies tottering at 82 for 7 in the 19th over.
India posted a comfortable 96-run win after bowling out the West Indies for 169, but they have a lot of pondering to do in the wake of the second successive failure of the most experienced top order batters. As they move to Kolkata for the T20I series, they will be without their key opener KL Rahul, who has been ruled out with a hamstring injury.
Brief scores
India 265 all out in 50 overs (S Iyer 80, R Pant 56; J Holder 4-34, A Joseph 2-54, H Walsh 2-59) beat WI 169 all out in 37.1 overs (O Smith 36, N Pooran 34; P Krishna 3-27, M Siraj 3-29) by 96 runs
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