Led by three-wicket hauls from Prasidh Krishna and Mohammed Siraj, India signed off from the ODI series with a 96-run win over West Indies in the third and final match at the Narendra Modi Stadium on Friday. Chasing 266, West Indies were never in the hunt and were bowled out for 169 in 37. 1 overs.
Deepak Chahar tested the opening pair of Brandon King and Shai Hope with some movement available from the pitch. He was almost successful when King top-edged the third ball of the innings but it fell between mid-on and mid-off fielders. King survived a DRS call off Chahar and ended the third over with successive boundaries. Mohammed Siraj was the first bowler to strike, trapping Shai Hope with a sharp nip-backer to hit him flush on the back pad. Hope didn’t take the review as replays later showed the ball was missing the stumps.
In the next over, Chahar returned to take out King and Shamarh Brooks in the space of four balls. While King nicked an outswinger to first slip, Brooks sliced the ball straight to point, departing without troubling the scorers. Darren Bravo and Nicholas Pooran amassed some boundaries but Prasidh Krishna broke the 43-run stand for the fourth wicket in the 14th over. Bravo played an expansive drive away from the body and edged to second slip. The extra bounce in the pitch helped Krishna in taking out Jason Holder as the ball hit the shoulder of the bat while defending and edge flew to slip fielder.
Choosing to bat first, India lost skipper Rohit Sharma (13), Shikhar Dhawan (10) and the off-colour Virat Kohli for a rare duck, but rode on contrasting half-centuries by Shreyas Iyer (80) and Rishabh Pant (56). Lower-order cameos by all-rounders Deepak Chahar (38) and Washington Sundar (33) then took the score to 265 in 50 overs.
