Twitter Reactions: Rohit Sharma, Ravi Bishnoi's heroics stand out in India's win against West Indies in 1st T20I

West Indies suffered yet another loss in the tour to India in the first T20I of the three-match series by six wickets. Earlier on the day, West Indies won the toss and opted to bowl at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata. The visitors did not have the best of starts as Brandon King, who hit a cracking four in the second delivery could not last long, and got dismissed for just four runs in the first over by Bhuvneshwar Kumar. Nicholas Pooran and Kyle Mayers steadied the ship with a 47 run partnership for the second wicket and it was the latter that was aggressive in the powerplay.

Mayers hit seven fours in a 31 run knock and was finally dismissed LBW by Yuvzendra Chahal in the seventh over. Roston Chase came into bat and he never got going as his struggle of four runs from 10 balls finally ended with the debut wicket for Ravi Bishnoi. Rovman Powell went for the big shot in just his third delivery and was caught in the deep in the same over. To counter the leg-spin, the West Indies sent in another left-hander in Akeal Hossein to the crease and the move did not work as it kept increasing the pressure on Pooran who was striking it clean from the other end.

Skipper Pollard came in the fall of Hossein’s wicket and he had a slow start while Pooran started seeing the ball like a baseball. The left-hander’s 61 off 43 balls with five sixes and four fours helped the visitors reach a decent score and there was some excellent death bowling from Harshal Patel and Bhuvneshwar towards the end after Pooran’s wicket. Pollard remained unbeaten on 24 to take his side to 157 for seven in the 20 overs.

Rohit Sharma’s blazing start at the top of the order for India

Meanwhile, India started the chase with some flurry of boundaries from the bat of skipper Rohit Sharma. Odean Smith was taken to the cleaners in his first two overs and the powerplay was very productive for the home side. Rohit hit three sixes and four fours in his 19-ball 40 while Ishan Kishan was happy to take his time from the other end. However, Rohit fell in the seventh over, while Virat and Ishan were relatively slow in terms of scoring rate.

Both the batters were dismissed in a quick session in the 12th over and it left with the new batters Rishabh Pant and Suryakumar Yadav to do the finishing duties. The Mumbai lad, in particular, was very much aggressive from the start and reduced the run rate pressure immensely while Pant was dismissed for eight. Venkatesh Iyer joined the party alongside Suryakumar to do the final rites and India won the game by six wickets with seven balls in hand.

Here’s how Twitter reacted to the win: