India 223 (Abhishek 69, Kishan 37, Chase 2-38) beat West Indies 209 (Hetmyer 43, Arshdeep 3-44) by 14 runs
Abhishek, Kishan promise another high-scorer
Abhishek, though, let him bowl to his plan only for one over. In Chase’s second, he gave himself room and hit two sixes and a four. Ishan Kishan joined the fun by going after Keemo Paul as India raced away to 87 for 1 in the powerplay. Abhishek scored 50 of his 69 runs on the off side, Only once has he scored more off-side runs in an international innings. Along the way he became the quickest man to 2000 T20I runs.
Chase starts West Indies’ comeback
After a brief breather, Chase had his own back when he had Kishan stumped for 37 off 18. This, unfortunately for West Indies, would not be the last six-and-out of the night.
In the immediate aftermath of Kishan’s dismissal, it became apparent for the first time on the night that this was not as much of a featherbed as Ranchi was. As the middle order tried tom keep up with the start given by Abhishek and Kishan, they kept falling.
Run-outs slow India down
Tilak Varma again looked in silken touch, but freakish wickets kept denying India the finishing kick. Reddy nicked one down the leg side, Varma ran himself out assuming a boundary had been hit and walked back to the crease, Axar failed to say no to Arshdeep when a single was not on. Given the chasing trends and the small boundaries, West Indies went into the break confident.
Arshdeep starts as he means to end
With the new ball at the start of the second innings, the difficulties of hitting at will were more apparent. Mayank Yadav extracted a bit of seam movement in the first over, but Arshdeep didn’t take chances. He went round the wicket to Hope, and nailed two yorkers before bowling him out with a length ball.
Spinners bring India back
Shimron Hetmyer, dropped on 5 off Mayank, shook off the inertia of the West Indies start with 19 off Arshdeep’s second over, but the Yadavs, Mayank and Prince, still closed out the powerplay well to keep West Indies to 54 for 1.
With Kamil Pooran struggling to go quicker than a run a ball, Hetmyer had to take more risks, giving Dhir his fourth six-and-out of the series in the seventh over. Axar and Dhir proceeded to shut West Indies down for two overs, resulting in the wicket of Rovman Powell to make it 82 for 3 in the 10th over.
Pooran made a desperate attempt to swing at everything in Dhir’s third over, hitting three sixes and repairing his strike rate a little but his fourth attempt ended up in a boundary catch. Dhir now had five international wickets, all of them off the immediate ball after being hit for a six.
The quicks show discipline
The ball was dry, the spinners had done well all night, but Shreyas Iyer went back to pace as soon as Quentin Sampson walked out. India had scouted well, as Samspon struggles to hit high pace as well as he does spin.
Sherfane Rutherford and Sampson kept West Indies in the contest for the next four-and-a-half overs but only just. India were willing to exhaust the overs of their best quicks right then and there for a wicket, which eventually happened to go to Reddy, who did his job by bowling figures of 2-0-19-1.
Needing 65 off the last four, West Indies now needed the best of Rutherford, but with Arshdeep and Prince maintaining a good execution rate with their yorkers, he was left with a little too much to do. Oyer kept bowling his best bowlers to make sure Axar had 36 to defend in the last over.
Sidharth Monga is a senior writer at Cricinfo
