India will remember Varma’s assurance, Kuldeep Yadav’s cunning, and Mukesh Kumar’s composure.
With six wickets in hand with Hardik Pandya and Sanju Samson at the crease, 37 runs came off five overs. India found a way to falter and lose when it should have been over. The five-match T20I series primarily serves as a means of identifying players for the upcoming World Cup, which will be played in the Caribbean and the United States. In that regard, even if they dropped a winning position when chasing a goal of only 150, the Indian team management will not be very concerned by the four-run defeat at the Brian Lara Academy in Tarouba, Trinidad.
India made two debuts, but youthful Tilak Varma caught the most attention with his grace and demeanour. He has demonstrated his brilliance and skill with a shot in the Indian Premier League while playing for Mumbai Indians. He made his debut in international cricket on Thursday by striking a breath-taking swivel-pull six off the second ball he faced, against the speed of Alzarri Joseph. He repeated the dose the following ball to show that the recent positive feedback he has been receiving is legitimate. Varma doesn’t favour one side of the field more than the other, as evidenced by a six over wide long-off and a deft cut past short third man. He was dismissed after a 22-ball 39 in the his debut international game, he led the side to victory in the eleventh over when he was looking good.
When 37 were needed in five overs with six wickets remaining, captain Hardik Pandya and Sanju Samson—the latter of whom seemed to be auditioning for a World Cup spot—still looked on track. In those three balls, both of the set batsmen were dismissed, turning the tide of the game. Samson was dismissed after Jason Holder castled the captain and Kyle Mayers delivered a direct hit.
Despite being an all-around player, Axar Patel was unable to lead the squad home. His chances of making the World Cup aren’t looking good after bowling only two overs on a pitch that is conducive to spin. Arshdeep Singh’s two boundaries in the last over helped India get back into the game, but collecting 10 runs in the 20th over proved to be a difficult task.
The other Indian debutant, seamer Mukesh Kumar, who was playing his maiden international matches in all three formats in less than a month, also performed admirably. He bowled two of his three overs at the latter end of the game and finished with a total run total of 24.
Holder excelled for the West Indies with statistics of 2/19 in four overs, one of which was a maiden, while Akeal Hosein, the left-arm spinner who opened the bowling, defeated Shubman Gill and kept things tight with a spell of 1/17, even while facing players like Suryakumar Yadav and Ishan Kishan.
India interpreted the surface as favouring spinners on the identical pitch that was utilised for the third one-day match two days prior. They used three specialised spinners, and it seemed like their plan was succeeding because the West Indies top order didn’t seem to know anything about wrist-spin.
Beginning with a barrage of boundaries, Nicholas Pooran spun the ball into Chahal and Axar Patel. The ball tended to turn away from the left-hander more often against the chinaman Kuldeep Yadav, who was not even close to as effective. Slog sweeps stopped working, and run flow was down to singles.
Pooran appeared to be carrying on in the same vein after scoring a hundred runs in quick succession in the Major League Cricket final in the United States. He took just six balls to reach 22, but following the Powerplay, the West Indies innings slowed down significantly. After six overs, the run rate was nine, but the subsequent four overs only produced 15 runs.
The hosts were put out of their misery by Kuldeep’s cunning – the left-arm wristspinner allowed only 20 runs in his four overs – and skipper Pandya’s deft use of pace and length. After that, Pooran and skipper Rovman Powell made an effort to pick up the pace, but when Pooran left at the beginning of the 15th over after making 41 off just 34 balls, there was no one to counterbalance Powell’s ferocity.
Shimron Hetmyer is currently a player who misses more often than he hits. The team management may have sent him at No. 6 in the hopes that facing fewer balls would help him develop his strategy, but the left-hander failed to bat through the end or increase the run rate, returning to the dugout after a 12-ball 10.
Powell, the captain of the West Indies T20I team, made a comeback and appeared lost at the beginning of his innings. His first boundary came on the tenth ball he faced, and it was an outside edge. However, he gained confidence and began to unleash some powerful blows after that. After being dropped twice in quick succession, Kuldeep was hit through extra cover and smacked Chahal for two consecutive sixes—one over deep midwicket and the other down the ground. In the opening two balls of the death overs, he found the point boundary and then smashed a full toss far past midwicket, scoring 10 runs off just two balls from left-armer Arshdeep. Powell’s 48 from 32 balls was the primary factor in the West Indies’ victory scored 149/6, which was just enough for the day.
