Cricket News: West Indies VS India 1st T20I - Rohit Sharma and Dinesh Karthik led India to a comfortable 68 runs win

The victory was courtesy of some firepower from Dinesh Karthik in death overs and complete dominance of Indian bowlers to rip off the powerful middle order of West Indies.

Put in to bat first, India started with another experiment with the intent of an attacking opening. This time, Skipper Rohit Sharma got the company of Suryakumar Yadav to open, and they gave a blazing start. Suryakumar's powerful opening finished quickly on 24 runs, and Shreyas Iyer followed him back without scoring any runs. The West Indies bowler kept the discipline, and India's middle order; Shreyas Iyer (0), Rishabh Pant (14) and Hardik Pandya (1), failed terribly, and the score became 102/4 in 11.5 overs. 

Skipper continued his innings and scored another half century before losing his wicket on 64. With the help of Dinesh Karthik's firepower of 41(19)* runs in death overs, India reached a substantial total of 190/6.

West Indies started their run-chase with a brutal attack, and it felt India might find difficulty stopping the opener, Kyle Mayers. But a small mistake by Kyle cost him a wicket, and after that, West Indies were immediately out of the game. They kept losing wickets in short intervals. From 22/1 in the first nine balls, they went to 86/7 in 13.2 overs, a complete failure of the West Indies batting line-up. West Indies finished their batting on 122/8, losing the game by 68 runs. 

Indian bowlers dominated the hosts, and their strategy to play three spinners worked. Arshdeep Singh, Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravi Bishnoi took two wickets each, while Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Ravindra Jadeja took one wicket each.

Nicholas Pooran said, "Disappointed as a team. The crowd has been amazing., The players have been feeling very hurt, but we will look to bounce back."

West Indies will have to take note of many things from this game. Their bowlers did a good job, but a batting performance like this will not help them. On the other hand, India will be happy with their experiments today and will continue to make more such changes confidently in the next game on 1st August 2022.