India continued their winning run in the West Indies after they defeated the home side by 7 wickets on the Duckworth-Lewis method in the second ODI at the Queen’s Park Oval in T&T. The Indian batsmen made light work of the revised target of 183 in 37 overs as showers lashed Port of Spain after the 22nd over. The rain delay made India’s task slightly tougher, but Virat Kohli’s 81 ensured that they reached home quite comfortably at the end.
Chasing 241 to win, India began slowly with Shikhar Dhawan perishing in the third over. But Parthiv Patel and Virat Kohli motored along nicely to always keep the required run rate under check. Rain lashed the Queen’s Park Oval with India on 100 for 1 after 22 overs and by the time play resumed, the away side required another 83 runs from 90 balls to take a commanding lead in the five-match series.
Patel and Kohli began after the rain break in aggressive fashion, but Parthiv’s luck eventually ran out after he nicked an Anthony Martin delivery straight into Carlton Baug’s gloves. Suresh Raina came in and began smashing the ball around, Kohli too looked in a hurry to finish off the game, but eventually holed out at long on after making a wonderful 81. It was down to Raina and Rohit Sharma to see India through to a convincing seven-wicket win.
Earlier, the Windies looked set for a big total thanks to impressive contributions from their top order. And just when they looked like changing gears- calamity struck as four quick wickets in a matter of few minutes changed the game.
The home side slumped from 175 for 3 to 197 for 7 as the home side’s middle order had no answer to Amit Mishra’s clever leg spin. The West Indies never quite recovered from that shock as Mishra’s 4 scalps helped India restrict the home side to a modest total of 240/ 9.
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