New Delhi:
India were inserted into bat at the Wankhede stadium, a venue which favored teams chasing. The series was level 1-1 and West Indies had an advantage. However, KL Rahul, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli proceeded to dismantle the West Indies bowling knowing that they needed a massive score to keep the Windies power-hitters at bay. Rahul blasted 91, Rohit smashed 71 and Kohli blasted a 29-ball 70 as India amassed 240/3. Rahul, Rohit and Kohli blasted a combined 16 sixes as India notched up their highest score at the Wankhede. The efforts of Rahul, Rohit and Kohli made Sourav Ganguly happy about the batting.
Tweeting on his official Twitter handle, Ganguly wrote, "Not many expected india to lose a series .. win was not a surprise .. what will stand out is the fearless batting which all will see in T20 now ..play without fear .. no one plays for his place but plays to win ..well done india."
Windies skipper Kieron Pollard said the team was confident of chasing the total down but losing Evin Lewis, who had sustained a knee injury and not executing their plans was the big reason behind their loss. Pollard said that West Indies had chased big totals in the past but losing three quick wickets in the powerplay cost them.
"They scored 240. I thought we didn't execute as we wanted. Yes they got off to a good start but we got a couple of wickets where we got back into the game. But when we came back in that scenario we didn't execute properly. That has been the story this series in terms of where we need to improve. We chased big totals before. We chased 230 against South Africa, we chased a big total here in 2016, 220 has been chased at this ground so it was not impossible. But then to lose Evin (Lewis) didn't help our cause. Everyone else had to go in and put in that extra effort but we faltered at the end," Pollard said.
During the series, West Indies had some notable performances in Lendl Simmons, Kesrick Williams, Hayden Walsh and Kharry Pierre. Pollard hailed the consistency of the players during the series. "It's a positive for us. And him (Williams) bouncing back after that first game as well and coming and showing his mettle, that was well done. There's still room for improvement for each and every one of us. But again, yes, that's a positive he can take out of this series. Even young Walshy bowled very well in the last couple of games. He's finding his feet now in international cricket. All in all, yes we lost 2-1, but I thought the guys stood up for themselves this series and that was very well done in that aspect," Pollard said.
Rahul scored two fifties in the entire series and his positive starts at the top of the order benefited India in Hyderabad and Mumbai. When asked about the approach, Rahul stressed that sometimes the team tended to overachieve.
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"I don't know really the exact answer to that, but we are looking to work on first innings if whenever we have to bat (and) start the innings. At times, we have tried to get?we start off thinking we want more than 200 or that's T20 cricket nowadays, no total is enough, you always feel like you are 10-15 runs short. So at times we have tried to over achieve and when you are batting first and setting a target that often happens, not just in T20 cricket but in any format. So it's a good learning for us and each game we play in we get an opportunity to bat first we learn something new and today was a good confidence booster for all of us and hopefully we can continue to do that more often," Rahul said.
