India skipper Rohit Sharma was highly pleased with his team’s performance after a 68-run win against the West Indies in the first T20I on July 30.
The Men in Blue outplayed their opponents in every area in the opener of the five-match series at the Brian Lara Stadium. Sharma (64 off 44) and Dinesh Karthik (41* off 19) starred with the bat, before an all-round bowling show helped India restrict the West Indies to 122/8 in their run-chase of 191.
The hosts found it progressively tough on a spin-friendly surface, with Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravi Bishnoi bagging two wickets each. Ravindra Jadeja returned 1/26 from his four overs, while frontline seamers Bhuvneshwar Kumar (1/11) and Arshdeep Singh (2/24) too, played their parts.
However, it was India’s strong finish that proved to be the decisive phase in the game. Being put in to bat, they were 45/2 by the end of powerplay and progressed to 138/6 by the end of 16th. However, Karthik’s strong finish, featuring four fours and a six helped them muster 52 in the last four overs to end at an above-par total.
Rohit opened up on the batting challenges on the surface, and lauded his batters’ effort in helping the team get to 190.
“The nature of the pitch… we knew it was going to be slightly tough. The shot-making wasn’t that easy at the start and at the same time, we do understand that guys who are set need to carry on as long as possible because there was some grip for the spinners. The odd variation wasn’t easy to pick.
“But the way we finished off the first innings getting to 190 was a great effort because I really thought this wasn’t a pitch where you can get 170-180 when we were batting in the first half of the game and when we finished the first ten overs,”
he said after the match, per NDTV.
The second T20I will be played at the Warner Park, Basseterre, St. Kitts on August 1.
