India vs Windies, Second T20I: 3 reasons why Windies lost
The fabulous looking Bharat Ratna Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium played host to the second T20I between India and West indies today. It was the first international match to be played in Lucknow in 24 years, so naturally, the stadium was packed to the rafters.
Carlos Brathwaite won the toss and decided to chase, keeping the dew factor in mind. India got off to a solid start as the openers built a strong foundation for the middle order.
Rohit Sharma in particular was very impressive as he notched up his fourth T20I century and became the highest scorer for India in the format. West Indies on their part leaked too many runs at the fag end of the innings as India put up a very challenging score of 195 runs on the board.
In reply, the West Indies’ innings never really got going as they kept losing wickets at regular intervals. The Indian bowlers had a field day, with everyone barring Krunal Pandya picking up wickets. In the end, India won the one-sided encounter by a massive margin of 71 runs to clinch the three-match T20I series.
Here are the reasons for Windies' loss:
#1 Rohit Sharma’s masterclass
Rohit Sharma is easily one of the world's best batsmen in white ball cricket. And to the dismay of the Windies bowlers, he has carried his good form from the one day matches to the T20Is.
Today, Rohit put up a perfect example of how to pace your innings. Coming in to bat on a tricky surface, he had to weather some good fast bowling by the West Indies new ball bowlers at the start. But from the moment he broke the shackles with a six off the first ball of spin he faced, he looked unstoppable.
Rohit was particularly impressive in the second half of the innings, hitting fours and sixes at will. He hammered a massive 111 runs from just 61 balls and became the only batsman in world cricket to have four T20I centuries to his name.
Whoever bowled to Rohit, was smashed out of the park. Once set, he clobbered the Windies attack all over the park, in the process also becoming the second highest run getter in T20Is.