India's 3 highest T20I run-scorers in West Indies ft. Rohit Sharma
India would feel that the USA leg of the 2024 T20 World Cup was kind to them. They played three games at the same venue, New York, pacifying a bit of their batting weaknesses (like power-hitting which wasn't needed) and allowing their bowling group to get a collective rhythm going after IPL 2024. The fourth match, in Florida, was abandoned, allowing India to reach Super-Eights unbeaten.
Now, we get more serious. With Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Australia to come up in Barbados, Antigua, and St. Lucia, respectively, the batters will need to be at their best. Naturally, experience in the Caribbean would also matter.
So, below, we have curated a list of India's three best batters here and their performances:
#3 Rohit Sharma
Indian captain Rohit Sharma's T20I numbers aren't great, especially in the last few years when his IPL performances have also dwindled. However, his stats in the West Indies are pretty decent. One hundred and eighty-five runs in six innings makes him India's third-highest run-scorer here. And they have come at a good strike rate of 145.66.
Incidentally, the first T20I he played in the West Indies, was in the 2010 T20 World Cup clash against Australia at the Kensington Oval in Bridgetown. He fought a lone battle with an unbeaten 79 (46) while batting at No. 4 in the chase of 185 as no other batter scored more than 13 runs and India crumbled for 135.
He couldn't recreate similar success with the bat at the World Cup. 12 years later, in a bilateral in Tarouba, he notched a good 64 (44) as the opener, helping India reach 190, which the bowlers easily defended by 68 runs.
In the third match of the series, and Rohit's latest here, he pulled a muscle and retired hurt for 11 (5).
#2 Suryakumar Yadav
Suryakumar Yadav seemed to have gained some form against the USA with a match-winning 50*. He'll be much more important to India's needs in the West Indies, especially considering his past exploits here. In six innings here, he has amassed 216 runs at an average of 36 and a strike rate of 161.19.
Like Rohit, he has also achieved this with two half-centuries, across two tours in 2022 and 2023, with both good knocks coming in the third match of each series. The 2022 one was the same game that Rohit went back retired hurt.
Suryakumar was opening alongside him and took on the game from the get-go. He ended up with a brilliant 44-ball 76 with eight fours and four sixes. What stood out in this innings was his ability to hit defensive hard lengths for boundaries better than perhaps anyone else to play the format, ever.
His second fifty, which came just last year, was even better -- a hardly-believable 83 (54) on a two-paced and mostly sluggish Providence pitch. With bowlers not giving him much to work with again, he used his power and smarts to find gaps. Both knocks showed the range of his skills which would be crucial for India.
#1 Suresh Raina
On the kind of pitches the West Indies will offer India, the Men in Blue wouldn't have minded having prime Suresh Raina available for selection. The former Chennai Super Kings (CSK) batter is India's highest scorer in these conditions with 221 runs in six innings at an average of 36.83 and a strike rate of 141.66.
Raina is the only Indian to score a century in these conditions. His magnificent and coming-of-age 101 off 60 balls with the aid of nine fours and five sixes against South Africa in the 2010 World Cup was also India's first in the format. In the same tournament at the same ground a few matches later, he notched a 63 (47) against Sri Lanka.
However, that was his last T20I here in 2010. He played another, scoring two runs in 2011. Rohit and Suryakumar now have a good chance of leap-frogging him to sit at the top of the list.