West Indies vs India, 1st T20I – Who Said What

The Lauderhill didn’t have a lot of runs to provide for the fans, but most of them went out of the stadium happily as India ended on the winning side, although not so comfortably. Not even 200 runs were scored on the day by the two teams collectively, but there was enough drama in both innings to keep the fans engaged.

The Windies lost a wicket off the second ball, with Washington Sundar dismissing John Campbell for a duck. Bhuvneshwar Kumar then disturbed Evin Lewis’ stumps, who too was sent back for a duck. Nicholas Pooran looked positive and smashed a couple of sixes, but gifted his wicket to the debutant Navdeep Saini while attempting for another wild slog.

Kieron Pollard held one end and tried to take the innings deep before beginning to slog, but there was no support for him from the other end. Krunal Pandya and Ravindra Jadeja ensured the middle order got blown away whilst Saini came back strong in the end to finish with figures of 3/17 on debut. Pollard’s run-a-ball 49 saw Windies register 95 runs for the loss of 9 wickets in their 20 overs.

Windies pick six wickets defending a low total

Rohit Sharma played a couple of delightful shots to get going and he also lost his opening partner Shikhar Dhawan early on in the run-chase. Sunil Narine looked in fine touch with the ball and picked up two wickets in two deliveries to dismiss Rohit and Rishabh Pant in the 7th over. Virat Kohli and Manish Pandey steadied the ship for a short while and stemmed the opposition’s momentum.

Apart from Sunil Narine, pacers Sheldon Cottrell and Keemo Paul bagged a couple of wickets each as well. Although the Indians should’ve completed the run chase easily, the Windies ensured they fought till the end and kept themselves alive. Despite their effort, the target was a little too low and Washington Sundar’s six over mid-on finished the game with 16 deliveries remaining for the Indians.

Here’s what the captains and players had to say.

Sunil Narine

 It is always good to be back in maroon. Hopefully, I can continue with the performances and keep playing for West Indies. Fitness is near, my finger is not 100% but I am trying to stay as long as I can on the park. In the series, we will see how it goes. We have to start the powerplay well whether we bat first or bowl first and take on from there.

We have to go out there and start winning cricket games before the World Cup. Once we play good cricket and hard cricket, the result will take care of itself. No new thing at the moment, I am enjoying my cricket. Hopefully, you will see more runs and more wickets in the future.

Carlos Brathwaite

We didn’t assess the conditions well. Kudos to Polly (Pollard) for leading the team with the bat, showed his experience. 130-140 would have been good on that wicket. We showed great heart to take the game as deep as we did and it shows that we batted ourselves out of the game without lack of assessment early.

We ask the guys to play positive, aggressive cricket as we West Indians instinctively do. The message would be to keep the intent, however, you need to assess better and be smarter with shot selection. Sunil’s four overs are very important. The pacers did well to set it up as well.

Virat Kohli

The bowling and fielding was right up there. The pitch wasn’t great to be honest, but they couldn’t have done much with all the rain around and the covers being on for three odd days. They did a good job to get the game started. The bowlers were on top throughout.

He (Saini) is from Delhi. He is a raw talent, has raw pace. He is one of them who can bowl 150 clicks and there are hardly any who bowl at that pace and he is fit. He is someone who can build a name for himself and he is hungry as well. Hopefully, he builds on from here.

We would have liked to chase this four down maximum, that’s how this pitch was. It was tough to get your shots away with the old ball. We just want to contribute as a team in the second game.

Watch: 5 fielders who saved most runs in the 2019 World Cup