Towards A West Indian Summer
From England , the Indian team went to the Caribbean islands for a limited overs series of 8 games . Buoyed by their victory in England , the Indian team went into the first ODI game confident . Led by Shikhar Dhawan , they surprisingly almost lost to a resilient West Indian team , who near perfectly pulled off a textbook chase .
West Indies opted to bowl , a decision that proved costly as Dhawan and Shubman Gill had a 119-run opening stand , with Dhawan fulfilling the absent Rohit Sharma’s role of anchor , while Gill performed brilliantly as the aggressive opener of the two . While getting out for 64 , Gill set the foundation for Dhawan to settle in and lead the innings as the captain , scoring 97 as he , unfortunately , got out in the 34th over. While the rest did not catapult the score further beyond reach , Iyer’s 50 landed them comfortably at a big total of 308 .
An ordinary team may have balked under the pressure of such a daunting target , but then again , West Indies is no ordinary team . Known for their explosive batting , West Indies really surprised everyone by trying to chase the target in a rather classical way . They started slowly and steadily , trying to set in batsmen who can hit the runs once enough balls were played . While good on paper , they almost lost the plot by being a little too safe and nimble that they lost wickets consistently while also not being able to accelerate the run rate . But in came two bowling all rounders in Akael Hossein and Romario Shepherd . When the required run rate seemed high , they reminded the Indian team why West Indies is called an explosive cricketing nation . Romario Shepherd led the charge with a blitzkreig dubbed 39 in 25 balls , orchestrating for 50 runs in the last 5 overs with his partner. Alas , on the last over Siraj pulled back and West Indies fell short by 3 runs .
While India played well , especially by the top order who have felt unreliable off recently , West Indies was no slacker either . Almost chasing 308 , while losing wickets consistently just how dangerous every player is on the team , especially in terms of power hitting . Usually , teams lose 6 wickets and the innings loses tempo as the bowlers come into bat , but with West Indies an extra wicket near the end can easily translate to 10–5 runs , as a second wind which hardly any team can consistently rely upon .
Judging by this game alone , I expect an exciting series ahead , as the India and their impressive teamwork clash West indies , a team centered around power and big hits .
Have a nice week ahead an exciting series to follow!