West Indies defeated India in the series decider to clinch the series by 3-2 in Florida.
India vs West Indies: An excellent performance from West Indies in the series decider helped them to clinch the series from India by 3-2. Brandon King took the charge of batting with his outstanding knock whereas Romario Shepherd led the bowling attack to win the historic series for West Indies.
No one has ever won the series after losing the first two matches of the series and India couldn’t change that history. West Windies won an exciting series and it was much needed for them as they have not been at their best recently as a team. There are many loopholes that need to be filled for Team India. Lack of performances cost them a series. Rain wasn’t by their side either in the series Decider.
West Indies made sure to return the favour to India in the fourth match. Brandon King and Nicholas Pooran stole the show while chasing and they made it look too easy. It was a poor decision from Hardik Pandya or team management to bat first given the weather conditions. Nicholas Pooran bagged the Player of the series award for his phenomenal performance whereas Romario Shepherd bagged Player of the match.
Highlights of the 5th T20i between India and West Indies
Winning the toss, India chose to bat first playing the same team. Indian openers Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shubhman Gill fell early to Akeal Hosein trying to give an aggressive start to India. Hardik Pandya’s slow inning affected the score of India. Suryakumar Yadav’s excellent innings on a slow surface helped Team India to reach a total of 165.
Kyle Mayers started to hit from his first ball but he fell to Arshdeep Singh in the second over, short ball did the trick for Arshdeep Singh. Hardik Pandya was very ordinary in his bowling and his captaincy. Yuzevendra Chahal had an off day as he got hit for 51 runs in his four overs. Tilak Verma also got his maiden international wicket of Nicholas Pooran in the match.
Brandon King’s excellent batting pushed away India from the game. He along with Nicholas Pooran took over the bowlers of India and turned the game in their court. Shai Hope gave some finishing touches and finished the game with six to clinch the historical series as West Indies haven’t won any bilateral series from India since 2017.
What went wrong for India against West Indies ?
There are many gaps in the team that needs to be fulfilled. First and most concerning is the batting form of the team. This is pretty much the same team that is going to play the World Cup next year so the team has to look and tick all the boxes. There was no batting after number eight in the team. Arshdeep Singh came to bat at number eight which shows the depth of Indian batting.
Apart from depth, the top order has been very poor in the series. Shubhman Gill just scored in the fourth match whereas Yashasvi Jaiswal got carried away. Hardik Pandya’s batting has been very poor since his heroics in Australia. He hasn’t been contributing to the team as per his expectations.
One of the most important matters to look into is the captaincy of Hardik Pandya which has been very questionable. His bowling changes have been very ordinary throughout the series. Axar Patel bowled the first over in the previous match and got the wicket but Hardik Panday didn’t give the first over to him in the next match on the same surface.
Yuzevendra Chahal was used in the powerplay which isn’t the thing he is best at. The use of Yuzevendra Chahal was very poor from Hardik in the whole series. Yuzevendra Chahal is known for his mastermind and bowling in middle and death overs, but Hardik Pandya didn’t let him bowl his preferable overs.
Mukesh Kumar was an excellent new ball bowler in the ODI series, but he didn’t bowl even a single over with the new ball in the T20 series. He even couldn’t complete his quote in most of the matches. Hardik Pandya just thought of him as a death bowler.
