India continued from where they left off after they comfortably defeated the West Indies by four wickets at the Queen's Park Oval in the first ODI. Rohit Sharma was the architect of India’s win with an impressive 68 not out ushering India to yet another victory.
The Windies won the toss and decided to have a go in the middle. But the visitors hardly seemed troubled by the lack of intent from the Windies. New ball bowlers Praveen Kumar and Munaf Patel once again did a stellar job in keeping the home side pegged back by taking wickets at regular intervals.
But it was spin that proved to be the undoing of the West Indies. Harbhajan Singh showed his class along with an impressive effort from Amit Mishra while Suresh Raina ended up scalping two wickets.
There was no real urgency from the Windies with only Ramnaresh Sarwan’s 56 and Marlon Samuel’s 55 helping the home side reach a competitive total of 214/9.
The Indians began their chase aggressively, but were pegged back with the wickets of Parthiv Patel and Virat Kohli stemming the run flow. Shikhar Dhawan on the other hand looked comfortable at the crease on his way to a well-made 51. Subramaniam Badrinath failed to make his start count as Devendra Bishoo got the better of the right-hander.
But Rohit Sharma’s strokeful 68 not out ensured that India were always ahead of the required rate. Skipper Suresh Raina also chipped in with a crucial 43 that virtually saw out the game for the visitors.
Ravi Rampaul took a blinder of a return catch to dismiss Yusuf Pathan, but that was the end of their success as Harbhajan Singh finished it off with a six in the 45th over.
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