Kingston, Jamaica: Some fine batting by Johnson Charles (97 off 100 balls) and Darren Bravo (55 off 78 balls) helped West Indies beat India by one wicket in a thriller here on Sunday.
It was the counter attack from Johnson Charles and Darren Bravo which took the match away from India as they knitted a partnership of 116 runs for the fourth wicket, which was followed by the cameo (29 off 26 balls) from Darren Sammy.
Umesh Yadav, Ishant Sharma and Ravi Ashwin did try their best by picking up the wickets at regular intervals but that wasn’t just good enough to stop them from chasing 230.
Earlier, Rohit Sharma and Suresh Raina who played some crucial knocks but their inability to bat till the end hurt the India's chances to put up a big total, and credit for that goes to Kemar Roach and Darren Sammy, who picked up the wickets at crucial intervals.
West Indies had a forgettable start as they lost the wickets of Chris Gayle, Devon Smith and Marlon Samuels in very quick succession. Though Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Umesh Yadav bowled brilliantly, the counterattack from Charles and Bravo gave the hosts some relief. Indian bowlers were finding it hard to contain them and ambiguity did not help India's cause further. Virat Kohli, who was leading the side in Dhoni's absence, was finding it hard to deploy his spinners on the track which wasn’t turning as much as it did in the first innings.
The brilliant pair went onto play some powerful strokes during the fourth-wicket stand of 116 runs, which blurred the Indian chances of winning the contest. But credit goes to Ashwin and Ishant, who picked up the wicket of Bravo and Pollard respectively to bring India back into the game.
However, Sammy who was avowed as the most trusted player of the match, scored a quick-fire 29 runs to take the game away. Charles fell short of scoring a maiden century against India but the pacified approach of Roach ensured that Windies will clinch this see-saw affair on his birthday which also extended the winning streak of West Indies on this ground to eight matches.
Earlier, it was some mediocre batting from Shikhar Dhawan and Virat Kohli which didn’t allow India to go for a flying start. They came dancing down the track whereas pitch was demanding to play off the back-foot. Rohit Sharma tried to steady the innings with Dinesh Karthik but it was Marlon Samuels who broke this very crucial partnership of 59 runs.
Raina applied himself very well on the pitch that was two-paced, especially when he was facing back to back short-balls from the likes of Sammy and Roach. Rohit added 26 runs with southpaw and got out to a worst possible shot at that moment. With the departure of a set batsman who had scored 60 runs, MS Dhoni was finding it quite hard and started running ones and twos.
With the Indian innings finally getting some momentum, as Dhoni and Raina added 58 runs for the fifth wicket, the serious blow came in when Dhoni pulled his ham-string while picking up a single. He took the medical time out which backfired as India lost Raina on the very next ball as he was looking quite good in his innings of 44 runs. Ravindra Jadeja and Bhuvneshwar Kumar added 15 and 11 runs to take the teams total to 229 in their quota of 50 overs.
Dhoni was declared unfit for the second half of the innings and it was Karthik who donned the glove for the team.