Twitter Reactions: Spirited Windies deny the centurion Virat Kohli yet another victory

Samuels turned things by picking three wickets in the end which included Kohli as well.

By Aditya Gajanan Kukalyekar verified

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Windies ODI
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Windies v India. (Photo Source: Twitter)

Windies stunned the Pune crowd by putting up a spirited display as they defeated India by 43 runs to level the five-match series. Virat Kohli, the Indian Superman, played a scintillating knock once again to make it three consecutive ODI centuries but his efforts went in vain. None of the Indian batsmen stayed with him in the middle as the middle-order exposed badly not for the first time in recent times.

Chasing the total of 284 runs, Rohit Sharma got out early and the skipper Kohli was once again out in the middle early in the chase. Shikhar Dhawan looked good for a brief period but he failed to get going on not for the first time in this series. The left-hander scored 35 runs before getting out to Ashley Nurse much like he did in the previous game. Meanwhile, Kohli had smoothly started his innings played some delightful cover drives to leave the crowd in his awe.

Ambati Rayudu was at his best in the last outing. But he couldn’t be consistent enough to ride the Indian side along with his skipper. The wickets kept on falling at the regular intervals while there was a brilliance from the other end. Rishabh Pant and MS Dhoni also failed to raise more questions about the middle-order. In the meantime, Kohli notched up his 38th ODI century but didn’t celebrate the occasion as he knew the team wasn’t in a winning position.

With him in the middle, things looked under control all the time. But Jason Holder played a masterstroke to bring Marlon Samuels into the attack and it worked wonders for the visitors. The ball skidded past Kohli’s bat to disturb the timber as the Caribbean side celebrated wildly. The match was done and dusted there itself and the ever so consistent Kohli departed after scoring 107 runs out to 220 runs India had scored at that point.

The curtains came down soon on the hosts as they were bundled out on 240 runs falling well short of the target of 284 runs. All the bowlers chipped in for the tourists as they continued to impress everyone with their performance in the series.

Hope shines once again

Shai Hope was once again the star for Windies with the bat. The stellar series continued for him batting at number three. Kieran Powell and Chanderpaul Hemraj were dismissed early with the latter being sent back thanks to the stunning catch by MS Dhoni. The innings unfolded similarly to the Indian innings with the wickets falling consistently at the other end and Hope carrying on.

However, Holder was an able supporter for him who scored 32 runs and while it felt that Hope will notch up yet another century, Jasprit Bumrah bowled a snorter of a yorker to castle him. India have also got a matter of concern to address here as the tail-enders once again batted beautifully against them. Ashley Nurse scored an unbeaten 40 and Kemar Roach also added valuable 15 runs to the total as they went on to post 283 runs on the board which looked under-par.

But the Windies bowlers comfortably defended the total in the end to set the series up nicely with two more matches to go. They’ve given themselves the best chance of registering a rare series win in India. Though they will have to play much better than this as the Men in Blue will come hard at them in Mumbai.

Here’s how Twitter reacted during the course of the game:

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