India demolish West Indies

Rohit Sharma’s tenure as India ODI captain began with a 3-0 demolition of the West Indies after the impressive hosts put up an all-round performance to win the third game by 96 runs here on Friday.

Shreyas Iyer’s responsible 80 coupled with Rishabh Pant’s aggressive 56 powered India to a challenging 265 in the inconsequential fixture.

The hosts then shot out their opponents for 169 in 37.1 overs as the visitors continued their dismal batting show.

With one eye on the 2023 ODI World Cup, the Indian team management gained plenty positives from their experiments in the thirdmatch series including the emergence of pacer Prasidh Krishna as the strike bowler. He ended with nine wickets in the series.

An ordinary batting performance the West Indies batters also made the Indian bowlers’ task easier throughout the series.

The away team was never in the chase and was blown away by another stellar show of fast bowling.

Pacer Deepak Chahar, playing his first game of the series, struck twice in the fifth over. First he sent back Brandon King (14), who edged to Suryakumar Yadav in the slip cordon and then on the last ball of the over, removed Shamarh Brooks (0), leaving the visitors at 25/3. West Indies could not recover from there on.

The ODI series will be followed by three T20 in Kolkata beginning February 16. After opting to bat, India lost opener Rohit Sharma (13) cheaply. Pacer Alzarri Joseph (2/54) pegged the hosts back, by first cleaning up Rohit on the third ball of the fourth over and then dismissed Virat Kohli (0) on the fifth ball to leave the hosts teetering at 16/2. Kohli tried to flick a delivery that was going down the leg, but edged to Shai Hope in what was a soft dismissal, extending the wait for his 71st hundred in international cricket.

Shreyas and the flamboyant Pant resurrected the India innings with their 110-run stand after India suffered a top-order collapse to be reeling at 42/3. The duo toyed with the opposition attack even as the southpaw displayed his hard-hitting prowess, striking six fours and a six. (Agencies)