West Indies 189 for 9 (Lewis 35, Kyle Hope 35, Umesh 3-36, Pandya 3-40) v India
Live scorecard and ball-by-ball details
Hardik Pandya picked up three wickets © AFP
For the first half of the fourth ODI, you just wondered if West Indies would choose not to bat at all after winning the toss if there was a provision for the two captains to just negotiate and decide a total India had to chase. There was no direction or urgency to how West Indies batted on a pitch much flatter than the one India fought hard on on Friday. The only purpose to the innings seemed to be to not get bowled out. West Indies were successful – only just – if batting 50 overs was indeed their priority, but the target of 190 was not likely to take India anywhere close to their 50 overs.
This was the joint second-lowest total for a side batting first and playing out its allocation of 50 overs since the 2015 World Cup; the lowest belonged to Zimbabwe. The perplexing part of it all was that for a major part of the innings, India didn’t bowl to take wickets; there were open fields to take singles in but West Indies kept either defending or hitting the fielders in the circle. India just did the formulaic stuff: 10 overs by quicks, followed by 10 from the less attacking bowlers, and then going to the attacking spinner.
If the lack of direction showed in the 181 dot balls faced by West Indies – at one point, Evin Lewis, a T20I centurion against India, had faced 23 straights dots from Umesh Yadav – lack of class showed in how they managed only tame dismissals whenever they tried to push the scoring rate. Each of the top six got in – Jason Holder’s 10 balls was the shortest stay – but the highest strike rate was 70.58 outside Holder’s 11 runs. All this on a flat pitch and against a steady attack that didn’t do much outside the routine, except for Kuldeep Yadav.
By the time Kuldeep came on to bowl, West Indies had put together their third 10-over opening stand in 40 ODIs since the 2015 World Cup, but the scoring had been funereal. They were 78 for 1 in 21 overs, and now they needed to start showing some urgency. And as soon as Evin Lewis, 35 off 59 then, tried a forceful shot, he failed to pick the wrong’un and lobbed a catch off the inside half. Raston Chase soon repeated his dismissal from the second match: looking to work Kuldeep to leg, in his mind with the spin, but then getting beaten on the outside edge by another wrong’un.
More than 31 overs had gone by, the run rate was under four, and because wickets had fallen, West Indies went back into their holes. Hardik Pandya, who had bounced Shai Hope out in the last match, followed it up with more bouncers and then the sucker ball to take the outside edge. Holder brought some impetus but he gloved an innocuous Umesh Yadav delivery down the leg side. At 154 for 5 in the 39th over, West Indies were going nowhere yet again.
This was the 39th over, and the last boundary of the innings had already been hit. Nos 10 and 11 not venturing out of their crease to push for an extra run in the last over summed it up for West Indies.
Sidharth Monga is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo
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Source: ESPN Crickinfo