World Cup 2015 Match 28 India v WI review; A tough win for India

World Cup 2015 Match 28 India v WI review; A tough win for India: A match that was supposed to be an easy win for India turned out to be a sweat inducing exercise for India as the West Indies made India bat out of their skin for the win.

West Indies batted first in the match after winning the toss and Indian fast bowlers made the life difficult for them from ball one. West Indian openers Chris Gayle and Dwayne Smith didn’t have any answers for Mohd. Shami and Umesh Yadav, both of them were bowling at more than 145 kmph and short of the length. In an effort to try and breakthrough, West Indies kept losing wickets at regular intervals and were soon 35/4 in 9 overs and very soon they were 7/85.  Only Captain Jason Holder (57), Darren Sammy (26) and Jonathan Carter (21) along with Chris Gayle (21) took West Indies to a respectable 182 in 44 overs.

Mohd Shami was the pick of the bowlers with 3/35 in 8 overs and Umesh Yadav picking 2/42 and Ravindra Jadeja picking 2/27. Indian bowlers including Mohit Sharma bowled menacingly and it was a sight to see West Indian batsmen jumping to avoid the ball.

Indian batting started on a disastrous note losing both the openers for 20 runs in 6 overs. Rohit Sharma had another failure scoring only 7 runs. Virat Kohli (33), Ajinkya Rahane (14), Suresh Raina (22) along with MS Dhoni (45*) took India towards a tight win. West Indian bowlers took wickets at perfect times making India work for their runs. But lack of runs to defend robbed them of a wonderful victory.

Jerome Taylor took 2/33 and Andre Russell took 2/43 to give India a setback in the course of victory. But MS Dhoni again finished the match with calm and cool mind along with R.Ashwin.

India now go to play Ireland next and West Indies play UAE.

Mohd Shami got the Man of the match for his 3/35.

Brief Score:
West Indies 182 (J Holder 57, D Sammy; M Shami 3/35) lost to India 185/6 39.1 overs (MS Dhoni 45*, V Kohli 32; J Taylor 2/33) by 4 wickets.

Trivia and Records:
# MS Dhoni’s 150th win as captain in international cricket, he is the 3rd captain after Ricky Ponting (220) & Graeme Smith (163) to win 150 international matches.

# This is MS Dhoni’s 59th ODI win as captain out of India, the most by India’s captain, beating Ganguly’s record of 58 wins out of India.

# This was MS Dhoni’s 174th ODI match as captain equaling Mohd. Azharuddin’s  record.

# Second time India has bowled out their opposition in four consecutive ODIs. Prior this World Cup , last happened in 2006.

# 5 Number of times that West Indies have been bowled out in a World Cup match against India, the most against any team.

# 10 Instances of WI losing 4 wickets for 50 runs or less against India. This has only happened more often against Australia (14).

# The highest scorer of the match was Holder (57 runs) who batted at No.9 and was on the losing side.

# MS Dhoni went past Ganguly (58) and equalled Lloyd (59) as the third highest number of wins as captain outside home country.

Stats Source : @SeerviBharath & @cricinfo_record

Quick Link : Top 10 most successful ODI captains.