Even after thrashing West Indies in the group stages of the recently concluded Champions Trophy in England, India started their Celkon cup campaign with a loss against the same opponent, this time them being the host.
Weather predictions stated overcast conditions for the day and a probability of shower, but like the previous match between WI and SL, this time also we had an uninterrupted match last night.
Captain Dwayne Bravo with pace spearhead Ravi Rampaul was out of the team due to injuries, where Pollard was chosen as the stand in captain.
West Indies won the toss and India being put to bat first got off to a flier until a caught and bowled by Kemar Roach resulted in Dhawan’s wicket.Virat Kohli also got out soon by a spectacular catch of Chrish Gayle. Wickets kept falling at regular interval, and the worst scenario was faced by the team when their captain, Mahendra Dhoni injured his right leg in course of running between the wickets.
Except for Rohit Sharma no remarkable batting performance marked India. Sharma scored an 89 balls 60 and in an effort to up the run rate of the team, played a loose shot and paid with his wicket when India was struggling at 124 for 3 in the 31st over.
The target fixed by the visitors was 230 as India ended their innings at 229/9 in their allotted 50 overs.
As injured captain could not take on the field, reserve wicket keeper Dinesh Kartik put on his gloves and youngster Kohli marshaled Dhoni’s troops as the stand in captain.
In return to India’s average batting show, West Indies lost early wickets in form of Gayle, Devon Smith and Marlon Samuels subject to tremendous bowling effort from Umesh Yadav and Bhuvanwesh Kumar.
Later, Johnson Charles(97) and Darren Bravo(55) stuck to the wicket and developed a 116 runs stand which led the Windies to achieve the total in 47.4 overs at the loss of 9 wickets with extended effort from the lower order as well.
The final result declares West Indies as winners by 1 wicket and Johnson Charles was declared the Man of the match for his batting blow.
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