India v West Indies World T20 2nd Semi-Final - 5 Talking Points

India and West Indies played a match that qualified as a worthy match for a World T20 semi-final. The Mumbai pitch acted as it has in the previous two matches, where we saw teams batting second chasing down totals of 189 and 229. The West Indies won the toss and decided to bowl and despite India scoring 193 and Chris Gayle going out cheaply, Windies managed to chase down total thanks to Lendl Simmons’ 82*. Now West Indies will travel to Kolkata to face England in the finals of the World T20 2016 and we will see a team winning the title for the second time. Here are the 5 major talking points of the match.

1. India team selection:

MS Dhoni usually does not changes his winning combination, but this time injury to Yuvraj Singh in the last game against Australia and dipping form of openers, forced him to make two very vital changes. In came Manish Pandey in place of Yuvraj Singh and Ajinkya Rahane was also picked in place of Shikhar Dhawan. Dhawan who has been struggling in the previous matches to get off to a start and carry on, was replaced by Rahane at the top and Pandey was brought in to lengthen the batting.

2. Virat Kohli does it again:

After a 50-run partnership from the openers, Virat Kohli entered the Wankhede in the form of his life. He started in his usual way and showed brilliant running form with Ajinkya Rahane and then MS Dhoni. He kept the runs coming from one end and he hit boundaries at perfect moments and kept India in the hunt of a big total. Dhoni and Kohli made risk free runs by running hard twos and some boundaries. Kohli made his highest T20I score of 89*.

3. No Gayle, no problems:

Chris Gayle had made a century in super quick time against England in a similar chase. But this time, Gayle was bowled for 5 runs by a searing yorker by Jasprit Bumrah in the second over of the match. But fellow opener Johnson Charles and Lendl Simmons made sure that the run rate did not drop too much and kept Windies in the hunt. And towrads the end all-rounder Andre Russell also played a crucial knock. This showed that West Indies was not a team dependent on just Gayle, which was said after West Indies lost to Afghanistan in the last group match.

4. Failure of spin:

Darren Sammy’s decision of making India bowl second paid off as the dew on the grass mad sure that Indian spinners Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja were pretty ineffective. There was so little for the spinners that India’s main weapon Ashwin bowled only two overs in the match and though Jadeja bowled 4 overs of his quota, he went for 48 runs, including the crucial 19th over where he gave 12 runs including a four and a six.

 5. No balls

The biggest talking point of the match remained the two no balls that gave two lives to Lendl Simmons at crucial junctions of match. First he was brilliantly caught off Ashwin by Bumrah at backward point, but Ashwin’s over stepping meant that Simmons got a life and then Pandya had him caught by Ashwin in the 15th over, but he overstepped and his free hit went for a six. They say catches wins matches, but here no-balls cost India the match.

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