Twitter Reactions: Impeccable death bowling helps India seal the series despite Rovman Powell and Nicholas Pooran's brutal hitting

Wow! West Indies and their power-hitting. You have to admire! India literally broke through the jail in the second T20I despite being at the receiving end of some brutal hitting from Nicholas Pooran and especially Rovman Powell. Chasing 187, West Indies got so close but fell short to lose the game by 8 runs and also the series with one match to go. India though has to thank the trio of Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Deepak Chahar and Harshal Patel to deliver pin-point yorkers despite there being a lot of dew in the middle.

Earlier, India managed to recover from an early blow of Ishan Kishan due to former skipper Virat Kohli. The 33-year-old looked in fine touch from ball one and played some exquisite strokes. The change in approach in the powerplay overs was clearly visible from him even as the skipper Rohit Sharma couldn’t time the ball as he would’ve liked.

The 49-run stand between the superstar duo was broken by Roston Chase who had troubled the Indian batters even in the first T20I. Run-scoring got fairly difficult in the middle overs but even then Kohli was threading the field like a needle to keep India ahead in the game. He also got to his well deserved fifty and was looking extremely to carry on. However, Chase was once again at work spinning one viciously and castling him.

He ended with brilliant figures of 3/25 in his four overs having dismissed Suryakumar Yadav as well earlier in the innings. At 106/4, after the fall of Kohli’s wicket, India were in some trouble. However, this is when the left-handed duo of Venkatesh Iyer and Rishabh Pant found their groove.

They counterattacked superbly to catch the Caribbean bowlers off-guard. Having said that, some poor bowling also played into their hands and their 76-run partnership in less than six overs propelled India to a formidable total of 182. While Iyer scored 30 runs off 18 deliveries, Pant was acrobatic in his batting smashing an unbeaten 52 off just 28 balls which also included a helicopter six off a full toss.

The intriguing chase

The chase didn’t begin on an expected note for the West Indies. Their openers Brandon King and Kyle Mayers added 34 runs but it took 5.1 overs for them before Yuzvendra Chahal  struck first blood. Soon King’s miserable stay in the middle was ended by Ravi Bishnoi. This is when Nicholas Pooran and Rovman Powell joined hands together.

When they came together, the West Indies needed 128 runs off 69 deliveries and the required run-rate was only going up with every dot ball. Pooran was set by then and Powell had to come to the party. Rather both of them did and smashed the ball out of the ground at will. They made sure that the spinners didn’t dismiss them and then it was only about power hitting in the death overs.

India were guilty of dropping catches of both the players and the marauding hitters of the ball made the hosts pay. The equation that looked improbable at one stage, came down to 37 from last three overs with both batters crossing their respective fifties. Harshal Patel bowled the 18th over well to leave 29 to defend off the last two overs. West Indies were the clear favourites as they had eight wickets in hand.

The penultimate over was handed to the veteran Bhuvneshwar Kumar and the man dismissed the dangerous Pooran. Bhuvi finished the over well too conceding only four runs off the crucial 19th over leaving Harshal to defend 25 runs in the final over. However, when it is West Indies, you cannot take any chances and at one stage, it literally felt like, Rovman Powell would repeat a Carlos Brathwaite.

But Harshal kept his nerves to defend the total. The likes of Deepak Chahar, Bhuvneshwar and Harshal Patel delivered perfect yorkers at crunch times to help India win the game despite not picking many wickets. With this win, India also secured the series but one has to credit the West Indies for keeping the opposition on the tenterhooks always and getting so close to the victory, only to fall 8 runs short.

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