Kohli lofts India to victory

Sent in by Raina to bat, the West Indies put up a better performance and scored 240. But it was not enough as rain curtailed play and India needed only 183 off 37 overs, which they did effortlessly !

This time the West Indian openers Simmons and Edwards got them off to a good start. Mishra struck the first blow when he had Edwards caught behind. Superb bowling by Munaf and Mishra restricted the West Indies to 240. Spurred by the wicket of Edwards, Mishra bowled with considerable guile, extracting vicious turn from the track and troubling all batsmen.

Lendl Simmons continued to impress and along with Sarwan put on 67 runs for the second wicket and both batsmen kept the scoreboard moving with delectable shots and quick running between the wickets. Simmons completed his fifty in 75 balls beofre he jumped to Yousuf Pathan and was stumped.

Sarwan was in sublime form and he saw to that West Indies posted a respectable score. Samuels played a brief cameo but was out to Pathan. He hit Pathan for a four and a six and then tried to repeat the shot and perished in that process Sarwan scored his second successive fifty and put West Indies on the road to respectability.

But then loss of many a wicket saw WI tumbling down to 240, instead of the projected 270 ! Munaf and Mishra bowled beautifully, getting 3 and 4 wickets and WI could not get on to the coveted 270 !

Munaf accounted for Sarwan and this brought in big hitting Keiron Pollard and WI took the batting powerplay. But the ruse did not work, as wickets fell regularly. Pollard was trapped lbw by Mishra, Dwyane Bravo holed out to Bajji off Mishra and Baugh also fell to Mishra. But Darren Sammy ( 22 off 19 ) indulged in big hitting and West Indies crawled upto 240 !

Glorious batting by Kohli ( 81 off 103 ) and Parthiv Patel ( 56 off 64 ) helped India register an effortless win by seven wickets. Six fours and a six flowed off the bat of Kohli while Patel blasted 2 fours and 2 mighty sixes in his knock. Suresh Raina ( 26 off 19 ) steered India to victory after their exits.