West Indies captain Nicholas Pooran felt his team was 10-15 runs short of a par score in the third T20I against India, which was played at the Warner Park, Basseterre, St Kitts on Tuesday. India went on to win the match convincingly by seven wickets after they chased down 165 with a over to spare.
West Indies got off to a decent start when they were put into bat by Rohit Sharma after he won the toss. The Windies openers Brandon King and Kyle Mayers added 45 runs in the PowerPlay overs with the latter playing an aggressive role.
Mayers went on to score a fine knock of 73 runs but the left-hander didn’t get support from the other end. Brandon King (20), Nicholas Pooran (22) and Rovman Powell (23) all got off to starts but none of them could go on to convert them. In fact, at one stage it looked like West Indies will be able to get close to 180 as they had wickets in hand but they could not add the finishing touches.
Furthermore, the hosts considerably slowed down after the PowerPlay conditions were lifted.
On the other hand, Hardik Pandya (1-19 in four overs) and Ravichandran Ashwin (0-26 in four overs) bowled economical spells to keep the Windies batters at bay.
Meanwhile, Suryakumar Yadav played a match-winning knock of 76 runs off just 44 balls to help India get close to the target.
Nicholas Pooran said in the post-match presentation, “Felt we had to get early wickets. Didn’t do that. We felt like we had enough. India bowled well. Wicket was on the slower side, felt it was difficult to keep scoring on it. Would’ve been a different game had we got early wickets. We kept losing wickets in the middle overs. We lost the game but did a lot of right things. Felt like we were 10-15 runs short. But early wickets could’ve changed the game today.”
India now have taken a 2-1 lead in the five-match T20I series and they will look to continue the good form. West Indies, on the other hand, will want to come up with a collective effort in the remaining two matches of the series.
The fourth T20I will be played in Florida on Saturday but the players are still waiting for their visa.
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