1st ODI
India 199/3 (39.2 ov)
West Indies
No result
The way India bat to the template of 300 in ODI cricket nowadays, it sometimes feel only some external factors can stop them. They were on their way in the first ODI of the series when the rain in Trinidad had its say.
India followed a slow start with steady acceleration, but rain cut their innings short at 39.2 overs, in which they managed 199 for 3. The rain did let up for a bit, and the water and the covers were cleared too, West Indies were then set 194 in 26 overs, but more rain arrived before they could begin their chase.
During the play possible, India almost sleepwalked towards 300 on a slow pitch. Ajinkya Rahane replaced the rested Rohit Sharma, but it was as if nothing had changed for Shikhar Dhawan. The two added 47 in the first overs, which in about two off India's average 10-over score since the 2015 World Cup, and then they both began to impose themselves, putting together their fourth century stand in 14 attempts at the top of the order.
Rahane will be frustrated he didn't convert this into a big hundred: he is yet to seal himself a slot in the XI, and once KL Rahul is fit he is expected to be the third opener in the squad, not least because he can effective in the middle order too. In the end, his 62 off 78, ended by a Miguel Cummins slower ball when Rahane had started to take the odd risk, did set India up.
Dhawan continued as if this too was a Champions Trophy match, falling for 87 off 92. Devendra Bishoo, the extra spinner West Indies played, kept India tied down through a spell of 10-0-39-1. India were looking to Virat Kohli and MS Dhoni for a big finishing kick when the rain arrived.
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2nd ODI:
India 310/5 (43/43 ov)
West Indies 205/6 (43/43 ov, target 311)
India won by 105 runs
Fifty overs. Forty-three overs. It doesn't quite matter. India are a bot designed to score 300 and not too many more when batting first, which proved to be more than enough against the inexperienced West Indies batting. No team has scored as many 300s as India - 96 - and it was fitting that they took the lead by seamlessly recalibrating their approach in a rain-curtailed ODI.
Ajinkya Rahane got to his third ODI century - the period approaching his hundred was the only slow spell in India's innings, Shikhar Dhawan's run continued with yet another half-century, and Virat Kohli knocked off an effortless 87 off 66. Shai Hope delayed the inevitable West Indies defeat with a fine 81, but once they had lost two wickets before the first run had been scored off a bat, further rain was their own ally. It was not to be.
Early morning rain had left the pitch damp and the atmosphere heavy, ideal bowling conditions that prompted the hosts to invite India to bat. The conditions eventually didn't turn out to be as treacherous as expected, but it didn't help that West Indies' new-ball bowlers never got their length right. They were either too short or too full, getting cut and pulled or driven with ease. There was also more intent from the India openers, who as a partnership have the best average among all pairs who have added at least 1500 runs together. Rahane got going with an upper-cut for a six, and Dhawan loved the driving practice given to him, off-driving Jason Holder for successive boundaries before pulling him for one more in the eighth over. India's 63 in the first 10 overs was about 14 more than what has been their average since the 2015 World Cup.
The busy scoring continued, especially given that Devendra Bishoo, who bowled well in the first match, struggled with his length. In Bishoo's third over, Rahane picked up two boundaries to get into the 40s. He lost Dhawan immediately after, stumped off the offspin of Ashley Nurse for 63 off 59, but took over the dominant role as Kohli settled down. As in the first match, this was atypical of Rahane, who usually slows down after a quick start against the hard new ball. Here, as on Friday, he accelerated gradually after a sedate start.
From 36 off 45, Rahane scored the next 50 runs in 40 balls, but slowed down near the hundred. The nerves were understandable. Here is a Test shoo-in who has struggled to cement a place in ODIs because he has failed to convert those quick starts on a regular basis. With KL Rahul nearing fitness, this chance, which has come through the rest given to Rohit Sharma, could be his last. You can understand Rahane wanted to grab it. He risked a run-out, he edged a cut, and the next 11 runs took 16 balls. He then laced a cover drive to bring up the hundred, but fell immediately after, looking to slog.
Kohli, though, didn't let the wickets slow India down. His acceleration was dramatic. He scored his final 50 runs in 25 balls. You could see he was struggling physically because of the high humidity, which is perhaps why there was an extra effort to set that solid base and concentrate on the swing of the bat and not the power. He didn't over-hit any of his four sixes, but hit them so clean that he didn't need to look up to see where they went. In the end, that lack of power did him in when he lofted an Alzarri Joseph slower ball to long-on in the penultimate over of the innings.
If there were any doubts about India getting the 300, Holder put paid to them by bowling three beamers and a foot-fault no-ball in his last two overs. The extra deliveries and runs took India over, making it 99 runs in the last nine overs. The next 99 runs would take more than half the length of West Indies' innings, and three wickets to boot.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar started off bowling in areas where batsmen's mistakes hurt them, taking two wickets in his first two overs. In the fourth over, Hope steered Umesh Yadav to score the first run off the bat. By the time he hit the first boundary of the innings, in the sixth over, the asking rate had crossed eight.
Hope showed the promise he carries with a composed innings, but he alone was never going to be able to make up for the disastrous and a struggling Evin Lewis at the other end. One of the final acts of the match belonged to a man bowling for the first time in ODIs: Kuldeep Yadav had Lewis stumped off a wrong'un, and Hope lbw on the sweep moments after the batsman had hit him for a six over long-off. He later came back to have Holder stumped off another wrong'un to stamp out the last bit of resistance.
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3rd ODI
India 251/4 (50.0 ov)
West Indies 158 (38.1 ov)
India won by 93 runs
Looking at how West Indies struggled in the chase of 310 in Trinidad, you felt they would need a leveller to compete with India. In Antigua, they got a bit of a leveller when they won the toss on a damp pitch - start was delayed by 45 minutes because of torrential rain a day before the match - and kept India to 251, but their batsmen still fell short by 93.
It was also a leveller that ODI cricket can do with every now and then: slips in place, value on short singles, premium on playing long innings. Reaching the run rate of four only in 43rd over, India's 251 for 4 was the third-lowest total this decade for a side batting first and losing four wickets or fewer. Ajinkya Rahane, auditioning for the opener-cum-middle-order reserve role, batted through 42 overs for 72; his strike rate of 64.28 was the second-slowest since 2010 for openers batting first and facing 110 balls.
However, that helped set the base for an MS Dhoni assault, who in Kedar Jadhav's company, added 81 in the last 7.4 overs to take India well past 220, which might have been about par, considering West Indies' inexperienced bating. Rahane's wicket seemed to have come at the right time: Jadhav got 26 balls to smack 40 runs in, and Dhoni matched it with 50 off the last 29 balls he faced.
Devendra Bishoo was again the pick of the bowlers, going for 38 runs for the wicket of Yuvraj Singh and adding a stunning catch to it. He, though, was introduced after Ashley Nurse had bowled five overs. The focus was clear: despite a helpful pitch and a start that had reduced India to 34 for 2, West Indies were happy to contain and take the wickets that came their way instead of actively going out looking for them.
Those of Shikhar Dhawan and Virat Kohli came their way. They didn't display the required patience to weather this mode of bowling. Dhawan ramped a short ball but lack of pace did him in. Despite struggling against the unpredictable bounce, Kohli went to steer a rising delivery and gave the man at gully a catch. Yuvraj Singh's would have come their way earlier than it did, but they neither appealed strongly nor reviewed when Yuvraj should have been out. By the time they got Yuvraj - thanks to a review again - he and Rahane had added 66, taken India to 100 and into the 27th over.
Rahane had slowed down after scoring 19 off the first 19 balls he faced, and Dhoni himself struggled against the spin of Bishoo. The two batted on, but West Indies kept squeezing through defensive bowling. By the 39th over, it seemed Dhoni had decided it was time to go. He went after Bishoo, in his ninth over. One slog fell short of long-on, and the other lobbed towards short third man, to debutant Kyle Hope, who had earlier taken an excellent catch to dismiss Kohli. This time, though, the ball seemed to hold up in the wind, and started to dip just short of him. He dived after having committed to go one way, but couldn't control the catch. Dhoni was only 28 off 50 at that point.
Rahane didn't enjoy similar luck when he decided it was time to go, against Miguel Cummins' pace in the 43rd over. Bishoo judged his upper-cut perfectly, ran in from deep point, and dived at the right moment.
Rahane had gone Miguel Cummins not just because there was finally pace on the ball but also because debutant Kesrick Williams, charged with bowling five overs out of the last nine, was doing well. So Dhoni targeted Jason Holder, and took 17 off his last over, stunningly fetching one length ball from wide outside off and depositing it flat over square leg for six. Jadhav saw Dhoni's innovation, and raised him a sweep shot off Cummins, having gone on a knee and well outside off well before Cummins released, and then pulling off the shot with surprising ease thanks to his still head.
Steady heads was what West Indies needed at the top, but Umesh Yadav broke through the defence of Ewin Lewis in his first over, skidding the ball under his bat from round the wicket. That brought together brothers Hope, Kyle and Shai, who added 45 for the second wicket before they both fell to bouncers from Hardik Pandya. West Indies continued to read Kuldeep Yadav, who bowled Roston Chase with a wrong'un before R Ashwin premiered a new bowling action and stuck in his first over.
Ashwin shaped up to bowl a bit like a legspinner would but focused on his offbreaks more than he did in the previous match. In his first over, he had an overblanaced Jason Holder stumped with a wide down the leg side. You can't be certain if Holder did actually play for a legbreak. You can be certain West Indies were now looking at their last hope: the partnership between Jason Mohammed and Rovman Powell.
Powell played a couple of attractive strokes to go with a couple of streaky ones as the two added 50 together, but India slowed down the pace of the game. Spin came on at both ends, four runs came in 23 balls, and Powell finally tried the big slog to give Kuldeep his second wicket. Ashwin soon had his second with the trigger-happy Ashley Nurse caught at square leg. West Indies still needed 103 at that point. Only finishing touches were left, which the spinners duly did.
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4th ODI: West Indies v India Jul 2, 2017 (14:00)
West Indies 189/9 (50.0 ov)
India 178 (49.4 ov)
West Indies won by 11 runs
The wine is oxidising fast. Add Antigua 2017 to the list of matches MS Dhoni has failed to finish off since 2014. He scored India's slowest half-century in 16 years as they failed to chase down 190 on a slow pitch against a spirited attack that managed to tide over a costly drop and a tactical blunder in the concluding stages. Jason Holder compensated for bowling Roston Chase in the 44th over with four wickets and a personal-best five-for, but it was Kesrick Williams, playing only his second ODI, who frustrated the hell out of Dhoni, conceding just 13 in four overs after the 40th and taking Dhoni out with the last ball he bowled.
Four years ago, in the West Indies, Dhoni found himself in a similar situation on a similarly slow track, chasing 202, leaving himself 15 to get in the last over with the last man for company. He got it in three hits.
Here, India needed 16 off the last two, but Dhoni couldn't inflict any damage against Williams' mix of slower deliveries and quick length ones. Perhaps it was the bigger boundaries than Queen's park Oval's from four years ago, perhaps he doesn't trust himself that much anymore, but here Dhoni pulled the trigger sooner. He could have taken a single off the last ball of the 49th and left himself 13 to get in Holder's final over, but he blinked first and drilled a length ball straight into the lap of long-on.
Moments after the match, Dhoni was seen sitting dejected in the balcony, a little lost even, when a member of the India squad had to shake him physically to shake his hand. Dhoni knows this is the kind of chase he has built his reputation on. It will be a little harsh to talk of him when the batting around him failed more miserably, but everybody - Dhoni himself - knows these are Dhoni finishes.
When Dhoni walked in, he brought a sense of calm to a faltering batting. Shikhar Dhawan departed early, not respecting the slowness of the pitch and driving Alzarri Joseph on the up. Joseph's grandmother, operating the manual scoreboard at Sir Viv Richards Stadium, cheered on.
The bigger blows were to follow. West Indies' adherence to their bowling plans has never been more apparent than when they have bowled to Virat Kohli, when he is new at the crease. They believe he doesn't like the bowl up at his throat, and 41% of their bowling to Kohli has been in their own half. Different batsmen react differently to plans against them. Kohli hates to watch a plan succeed for a while before overcoming it. He wants to dominate. Out went his trusted weaving and ducking, and in came the hook shots. Holder's third bouncer in the sixth over produced the top edge, and we had a game on now.
Dinesh Karthik, replacing the injured Yuvraj Singh, and playing ahead of Rishabh Pant presumably because he was selected in the squad before Pant, did worse against the bouncer. After taking 13 balls to get off the mark, he top-edged one that was barely chest high.
In came Dhoni to join Ajinkya Rahane, who had again looked comfortable against the new ball. Before Karthik's wicket, West Indies had let Rahane off: Holder let one through his legs at mid-off and then Jason Mohammed dropped him on 23. Now the two began to bat cautiously; the asking rate was not an issue at this point. The old maxim of "India win if they bat 50 overs" still held true as Rahane and Dhoni laboured through their 54-run partnership.
West Indies were markedly different from two nights ago when they had failed to squeeze India after taking two early wickets. Here there were no easy singles as first Williams and Devendra Bishoo, and then Ashley Nurse, dried up the runs. While Rahane did get the odd boundary, Dhoni said an absolute no to taking any risk.
By the time Rahane took his last risk, sweeping Bishoo against the turn, the asking rate hovered around 4.55. It was still in Dhoni's control. You still felt Dhoni just needed to bat through. However, Dhoni was not batting like Dhoni does. He was still timing balls, but failed to find gaps. Bishoo and Nurse bowled 68 balls to him for 28 runs, slower than his innings strike rate of 47.36. Dhoni was even forced to play a sweep shot, which is the ultimate last resort for him against spin.
As Kedar Jadhav fell, bat-pad to Nurse with Shai Hope leaping from behind the stumps, the asking rate closed in on a run-a-ball. Hardik Pandya ramped one for four to buy some breathing space, Dhoni began to take risky singles, and in the 40th over, India needed more than six per over. Would it still be an India win if they batted through?
Dhoni definitely thought so. He kept waiting for the mistake from the opposition, a principle he has built the second half of his limited-overs career on. A tenet of captaincy he has handed down to Kohli. The mistakes weren't forthcoming, though, as Williams began to bowl the gun overs perfectly.
Now Holder is a leader by example, but his being at the forefront had cost West Indies 65 runs in 4.5 overs at the death in the last two matches. Perhaps he wanted to do the prudent thing. Perhaps he wanted to continue with offspin after Nurse's success. Whatever be the reason, after three conservative bowling innings, with 55 required off 42, with that painstakingly increased asking rate at stake, Holder asked Roston Chase to bowl his offspin… for the first time in the series. Chase proceeded to gift Dhoni a boundary down the leg side - his first in 103 balls, then bowled a wide and then went for a six to Pandya to bring the equation down to 39 off 36. Surely now India win if they bat through?
Surely not. Holder came back immediately to make amends with a leg-stump yorker to send back Pandya. In came Ravindra Jadeja, p[laying ahead of the rested R Ashwin, who has got a bit of a reputation of being headless under pressure in limited-overs cricket. When the singles ought to do it, he went for the big hit, sending a Holder slower ball down long-on's throat, making it 17 off 15. Dhoni should still have it, right?
Dhoni still seemed to have it as he took a single next ball, leaving Kuldeep Yadav, batting for the first time in ODIs, two balls to face from Holder. Both were dots. Williams began the 49th with a slower ball. Dot. Then, calmly, still as if in the middle overs of an innings, he pushed a single. Nothing wrong with it. That's how Dhoni is. last over it shall be, one on one, me vs you.
Williams, though, squeezed out two dots against Kuldeep before bringing Dhoni back on strike for the last ball. And that's when Dhoni blinked. That's when he did the uncharacteristic thing. Imagine the amount of pressure he must be under at that moment to give up his trusted path.
Holder finished the innings with a flourish, notching the five-for, keeping West Indies alive in the series, making up with his bowling the direction and purpose they lacked with the bat. When West Indies batted, you wondered if they would choose not to bat at all after winning the toss if there was a provision for the two captains to just negotiate and decide a total India had to chase. They would still have brokered a better deal than the 189 that they got, joint second-lowest total for a side batting first and playing out its allocation of 50 overs since the 2015 World Cup; the lowest belonged to Zimbabwe.
There was no direction or urgency to how they batted on a pitch much flatter than the one India fought hard on on Friday. The perplexing part of it all was that for a major part of the innings, India didn't bowl to take wickets; there were open fields to take singles in but West Indies kept either defending or hitting the fielders in the circle.
If the lack of direction showed in the 192 dot balls faced by West Indies - at one point, Evin Lewis, a T20I centurion against India, had faced 15 straights dots from Umesh Yadav - lack of class showed in how they managed only tame dismissals whenever they tried to push the scoring rate. However, there was another factor at play, the slowness of the pitch, which they exploited decisively in the second half of the match.
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5th ODI
West Indies 205/9 (50.0 ov)
India 206/2 (36.5 ov)
India won by 8 wickets (with 79 balls remaining)
Normal service resumed in the West Indies as the hosts' batsmen failed again - this time on a much better batting surface - and India chased 206 down with relative ease to seal the series 3-1. Just like India seem wired to score around 300 no matter the situation or conditions, the number seems to be 200 for them. They got away with 189 in the last match, but on a pitch that the ball came on to the bat, their inability to score freely off the spinners - 76 runs in 24 overs - consigned them to defeat.
In the chase, Virat Kohli overcame his recent short-ball trouble by choosing to tide over the barrage as opposed to hooking everything. He now has more hundreds in ODI chases than anybody else - 18.
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The unsung heroes for India, though, were their spinners even though the scoreboard shows just one under the wickets column for them, that too for part-timer Kedar Jadhav. The fast bowlers, who took eight wickets between them, will, however, argue that they cleaned up after themselves after a profligate start. Umesh Yadav in particular struggled with the new ball, bowling either short and wide or full on the pads. Kyle Hope cashed in as he and Evin Lewis added 39 for the first wicket in 8.2 overs. Then he joined brother Shai to add a further 37.
At 3-0-22-0, Umesh was taken out of the attack, and was brought back soon after the fielding restrictions were taken off. He bowled two overs for four runs, then Kyle Hope attacked him with two boundaries and fell while going for a third. The ball was short enough, but the batsman failed to clear short midwicket. Umesh swooped in on that break with a full and straight delivery to send Roston Chase back first ball.
The stage was now for spinners to cut off the oxygen supply. Ravindra Jadeja found turn, Kuldeep Yadav remained difficult to negotiate, and Jadhav's low, round-arm, non-turning, slow offbreaks sent back a frustrated Jason Mohammed.
Walking in at 115 for 4 in the 31st over, Jason Holder used his long reach to put the spinners off their rhythm. He hit four fours, and a six off Hardik Pandya, but when he went to hit Shami straight down the ground he found an agile Shikhar Dhawan at long-on. The going was tough for West Indies after that.
And before that. There had been an 11-over spell without boundaries before Holder, and after Holder they managed only three boundaries, which incredibly were the first ones they had hit past the 40th over all series. Two of those were sixes in the last two overs from Rovman Powell that pushed West Indies past 200. Still they knew they needed lightning to strike twice if they were to defend this.
For a moment it seemed lightning might indeed strike twice when Dhawan went back in the first over of the chase, again driving on the up and failing to keep the ball down. In the fourth over, it should have become two down but Devendra Bishoo dropped Ajinkya Rahane at point. Rahane didn't go on to take his streak of 50 or more to five, but he added 79 with Kohli to set India on their way.
More importantly, Rahane's urgency and early boundaries meant Kohli could take his time dealing with the short ball. In the previous matches, his eagerness to score, a dominating batsman's ego if you will, had got the better of him, but here Kohli was prepared to wait it out. He kept ducking, weaving and leaving bouncers before he finally hooked in the ninth over, at least the eighth bouncer bowled at him. This was smoked clean in front of square for four with the wrists managing to keep it down.
The bouncers now came down to the occasional ones. Rahane reached his slowdown period now with the ball getting older, but slowly - and a little gingerly - Kohli began to dominate. It helped that there were quite a few loose balls on offer, especially from West Indies' legspinning talisman Bishoo.
As Kohli got more and more comfortable at the wicket, he began to put away even the good balls, as he did with a late cut off an Ashley Nurse length ball to move to 68 off 80. He moved to hundred in another 28 balls, unleashing an emotional celebration. Dinesh Karthik, playing only his second ODI in three years, provided Kohli good support, scoring a fifty off his own.
