After a clean sweep during ODI series, India defeated West Indies by 68 runs in the first T20 match of the five-match series on Friday at the Brian Lara Cricket Stadium in Trinidad.
Winning the toss, the Indies opted to field and Indian skipper Rohit Sharma along with the first time international opener Surya Kumar Yadav started off the innings well. With just six runs short to mark 50 runs on scoreboard for the team, WI bowler Akeal Hosein was quick to send him back to the pavilion. Surya Kumar Yadav was sent back at 24 (16).
Captain Rohit Sharma scored the most runs for India. He played a brilliant innings of 64 runs off 44 balls. While in the death overs, Dinesh Karthik continued his league and scored 41 runs in just 19 balls to mark a 191-run target on the scoreboard. With a strike rate of 215.75, Karthik had hit four 4s and two 6s during his innings.
For West Indies, Alzari Joseph took the most wickets by dismissing two Indian batsmen. Meanwhile McCoy, Holder, Hosein and Paul got 1 wicket each.
Coming to bat next, both the West Indian openers – S Brooks and K Mayers along with Jason Holder were early to go back. They were dismissed before the team could mark 50 runs on the scoreboard. Thereafter, none of the Indies’ batsmen were able to even score 20 runs individually and resultantly the hosts could mark 122 runs on the scoreboard in 20 overs with a fall of eight wickets.
Talking about Indian bowling department, Arshdeep Singh, Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravi Bishnoi dismissed two batsmen each. Whereas, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Ravindra Jadeja took one wicket each. This led the team to beat Indies by 68 runs and take the lead 1-0 in the five-match series.
Dinesh Karthik was named Man of the Match for his brilliant 41-runs knock off 19 balls. The second match of this series will be played on August 1 at 8 pm (IST) at Warner Park stadium. The match will be aired live by DD Sports.
