West Indies beat India by one-wicket

The 50 run partnership came off 70 balls. Bravo,who was slow to begin with but chanced his arms against Ravindra Jadeja hitting the bowler over his head for a six.

The duo batted sensibly as the 100 came up in the 22nd over and Charles completed a well-deserved half-century off 60 balls. To celebrate his 50,Charles gave Jadeja the charge to hit him into the stands. The 100 runs for the fourth wicket partnership came off 131 balls and in the 26th over.

With the pitch easing out a bit compared to first half,the West Indian pair didn’t have any problems in negotiating the Indian bowlers. Spin twins Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin weren’t as effective as one expected them to be.

A desperate Virat Kohli leading the side in regular skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s absence briught back Yadav for his second spell but Charles greeted him with one of the biggest six of the match.

Finally,after a 116-run partnership,Bravo was gone for 55 trying to dispatch a half-tracker from Ashwin but only managing to find Shikhar Dhawan at short mid-wicket. The wicket rejuvenated the Indians as Ishant Sharma came back for his second spell and bowled a perfect length to induce an edge off rival captain Kieron Pollard which was smartly taken by Dinesh Karthik behind the stumps. From 142

for three,West Indies suddenly became 155 for five.

From 155 for five,it soon became 161 for six as Ashwin operating from round the wicket pushed one which breached Denesh Ramdin’s defence.

Sammy announced his arrival with a huge six off Ishant and followed it up with a backfoot cover drive off Ashwin. If this wasn’t enough,Sammy used Yadav’s pace to hit him over deep square leg for a second six to bring down the required runs to below 50 with 15 overs still remaining.

The former skipper scored a quickfire 29 off 25 balls before he was holed out in the third man region of Ishant’s bowling.

Earlier,Indian batsmen battled hard on a difficult track as they managed 229 for seven in stipulated 50 overs.

Rohit Sharma (60) scored a composed half-century while Suresh Raina contributed an useful 44 after the ‘Men In Blue’ were put into bat by West Indies’ stand-in captain Kieron Pollard.

Skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni battled cramps that hampered his running between the wickets badly yet he carried on manfully to chip in with 27 off 34 balls before he was cleaned up by a Tino Best inswinger.

There were two notable partnerships in the Indian innings. 59 for the third wicket between Sharma and Dinesh Karthik and 58 for the fifth wicket between Raina and Dhoni.

Indian batsmen could manage only 17 boundaries in all apart from three sixes. The mandatory batting Powerplay also yielded only 27 runs which was a testimony to the fact that the track wasn’t conducive for ODI cricket.

Sharma frittered away another opportunity to score big as he got out after a well-compiled 60 off 89 balls.

Shikhar Dhawan,Virat Kohli and Karthik didn’t make significant contributions although Karthik was engaged in a half-century stand with Sharma.

Darren Sammy had a decent outing with the ball as he took two for 41 from his 10 overs. Kemar Roach also had identical figures of 2/41 from 10 overs. Best took 2/54 in 10 overs.

‘Man of the moment’ Shikhar Dhawan pulled Best and then hit a crisp cover drive off Roach to get couple of boundaries. Sharma,whose performance has been much better since he started opening the innings started off with a six off Best –a slash that flew over third man.

However Roach had the last laugh when Dhawan (10) failed to check his uppish drive which the bowler caught on the second attempt.

Virat Kohli (11,21 balls) struggled to get going on a slow pitch before he tried an expansive drive off Darren Sammy but Chris Gayle standing wide of first slip took a fantastic one-handed catch diving to his right.

For Karthik,it was an onerous task to rotate strike as Sammy was in the middle of a good spell where he kept things tight. With the ball not coming onto the bat,the two batsmen proceeded on a sedate note during the initial phase.