India beat West Indies by four wickets to complete their fourth straight win of the tournament. Despite losing wickets at crucial moments, MS Dhoni held firm and guided India to a win. The skipper top scored for the defending champions with an unbeaten 45. Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma had their work cut out and a good opening partnership would have given India the upper-hand. But a day, which mostly went India’s way, soon turned around as the Men in Blue lost wickets at regular intervals.
Jerome Taylor gave Windies the first break-through as Dhawan (9) departed without adding too much on the board who was soon followed by Rohit Sharma (7) due to a peach of a delivery by the young West Indian fast bowler.
Taylor’s couple of wickets got the West Indians back in the match as the Calypso music kept reverberating all around the stadium with India’s score on 20 for 2.
Virat Kohli (33) looked great, till the time he took on Andre Russell, and to be fair to the bowler, it was poor shot selection more than anything else that led to his downfall.
Kohli went for the hook when the man at the deep was stationed precisely for that shot and at the end it was a easy catch for the man at deep square-leg.
Ajinkya Rahane (14) is known for his temperament and while he was there, the young man from Mumbai gave a lot of calmness to the dressing room but it was only for a brief period of time as Rahane soon departed in trying to nudge the ball towards the third-man region and the sniko showed that he got a feather to the ball.
Both Rahane and Kohli got out in quick succession and India were in a spot of bother with the score on 78 for 4. That brought Suresh Raina and Mahendra Singh Dhoni at the crease and the duo stitched together a partnership of 29 runs that got India past the 100-run mark.
Raina (22) could do much with his start as he threw his wicket away to a short ball while going for the cut. Ravindra Jadeja (13) who looked aggressive and got the score-board moving got India closer to the target with his 27-run partnership with Dhoni and his exit meant West Indies, now had more than a chance to win the match with 48 more runs to win.
But Dhoni (45) and Ashwin (16) made sure that there are no more hiccups in the Indian innings as the duo stitched together a partnership of 42 runs to take India home that gave them their fourth victory in the tournament and also ensured their place in the knock-out stages of the World Cup.
Earlier. with all the troubles, plaguing the West Indian team right now, the whole of Carribean must have tuned in to see a team which shows some fight, let alone wining the match. Afterall, there is a legacy of West Indian cricket which most of the people born in this generation might not be aware of and sadly so.
And they did not do any good to their ill-reputation with a performance which could have embarrassed the likes of Curtly Ambrose, Stuart Williams any more than what transpired at WACA, Perth.
