Twitter goes berserk as India defeat Windies in dramatic fashion to seal whitewash
India defeated Windies by 6 wickets in the third and final T20I to whitewash them 3-0.
In the initial stages of the One Day series, the West Indies batsmen gave India a minor scare but have been quiet ever since. In their last four innings - 2 ODIs and 2 T20Is - before this match, their highest score was just 153.
The visitors chose to bat after winning the toss and got off to a decent start. Their openers - Shai Hope and Shimron Hetmyer - scored 51 runs during the powerplay overs even after scoring just one run off the first over of the innings bowled by Khaleel Ahmed.
Yuzvendra Chahal, who made it to the playing XI for the first time in the series, created immediate impact as he sent back both the openers in his first two overs. Denesh Ramdin, who joined Darren Bravo in the middle after the second wicket, did not trouble the Indian bowlers much as he was dismissed by another new entrant to the side, Washington Sundar for a run-a-ball 15.
Following the departure of Ramdin came the most important partnership for Windies. Nicholas Pooran, who made it to the squad after an excellent CPL, proved that he is worth his weight in gold.
While Bravo, with a 37-ball 43, provided stability to the innings, Pooran went berserk and gave the innings a blazing finish. A 25-ball 53 from the right-hander's bat helped Windies add 86 runs in the last seven overs.
During the chase, India lost their skipper, Rohit Sharma in the third over. KL Rahul too perished in the last over of the Powerplay after hitting four boundaries during his short stay of 10 balls.
Shikhar Dhawan was joined by Rishabh Pant in the middle after the two big wickets. The two left-handed batsmen started off the partnership slowly before unleashing their might. They scored just 31 runs in the first 28 balls and India's score at the end of 10th over was 76-1 with the required run-rate of 9.6.
From the eleventh over, the Delhi boys went bonkers. Their onslaught began with a six each in the eleventh over bowled by Oshane Thomas. While Dhawan reached the half-century mark in the twelfth over, Pant's turn came in the sixteenth over.
The two stylish southpaws added 130 runs for the third wicket before Pant was bowled by a Keemo Paul yorker while he was trying a reverse-scoop. Manish Pandey who came into the middle was greeted by Paul with four yorkers of which the right-handed batsman could only extract two runs.
With just 5 runs needed off the last over, India looked like they were in complete control of the game before Dhawan got out trying to hit a six off the penultimate ball when India needed just one run. With one run needed off the last ball, Manish Pandey pushed the ball to the right of the bowler, who failed to collect the ball and in the meanwhile, the two batsmen completed the single to take India home.
Here's how Twitter reacted to India's whitewash over the defending World T20 Champions Windies: