Twitter Reactions: Krunal Pandya's all-round effort and Dinesh Karthik steer India home

The visitors tried their best to defend but India were too good on the day.

By Aditya Gajanan Kukalyekar verified

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4 Min Read

Krunal Pandya
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Krunal Pandya. (Photo Source: Twitter)

India have won the first T20I of the three-match series to take a 1-0 lead despite stuttering on their way to a paltry total. It was the duo of Dinesh Karthik and Manish Pandey who bailed the team out of trouble by patiently and the visitors, in search of wickets, dished out some poor deliveries after bowling really well in the first half of the innings. But one has to credit them for making a match out of 109 which their hapless batsmen posted on the board.

Oshane Thomas continued to trouble the Indian openers. Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan both got out to him and literally sheer pace of Thomas got the batsmen. Dhawan has so far been dismissed by only two Windies bowlers in the last six matches now. Ashley Nurse and Thomas have become his nemesis and the left-hander will definitely have to work on his batting against them.

The onus was now on KL Rahul to take the Men in Blue over the line but even he went back by pulling the short ball straight to the deep mid-wicket fielder. Rishabh Pant continued to disappoint in the limited-overs format and it was only due to the 38-run stand between Karthik and Pandey. They soaked in all the pressure even as Carlos Brathwaite bowled a wonderful spell.

In the end, it was the debutant Krunal Pandya who played some delightful strokes in his debut outing to prove his all-round importance to the team. Karthik also batted well to stay in the middle until as the hosts chased down the total in the 19th over with five wickets in hand.

Kuldeep and Co. wreck havoc

Earlier in the day, Windies, after being invited to bat first, put up yet another horrendous display of batting for their third game in a row. The fall of wickets started from the third over of the innings even as Shai Hope was involved in one of the most bizarre run-outs in the game. Every batsman followed the other as they were soon reduced to 63/7. The spin duo of Kuldeep Yadav and Krunal tied up the opposition batsmen.

Eventually, the lower-order batsmen Keemo Paul and Fabian Allen gave some impetus to the total. Somehow Windies crawled past the 100-run mark thanks to Umesh Yadav’s poor 19th over. At the end of 20 overs, they posted 109 runs for the loss of eight wickets which didn’t prove enough despite their bowlers trying their best.

Here’s how Twitter reacted during the game:

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