What happened the last time India men's team played a T20I at the Providence Stadium, Guyana?
India will play the second and third T20Is of the ongoing five-match series against West Indies at the Providence Stadium in Guyana on Sunday and Tuesday, respectively.
The 15000-capacity ground was built in 2006 for the 2007 ODI World Cup. Indian government provided significant monetary and infrastructural aid to build it after then-Guyanese president Bharrat Jagdeo's visit to India in 2004.
However, it wasn't ready in time despite assurances from all stakeholders and ran into a myriad of issues, including failures to provide security and crowd control and lacking infrastructure for journalists. The World Cup officials had to ask a British company to take over the work from local authorities, days before the first match at the venue for the marquee event.
Also known as the Guyana National Stadium, it has since then hosted matches in all three formats for men, and ODIs and T20Is for women. This will be the second time an Indian men's team will play a T20I here and the first time since 2019. They came here for an ODI in 2019 as well but that was washed out.
What happened the last time the India men's team played a T20I here?
The Men in Blue toured West Indies in 2019 for an all-format tour, which they completed without even losing one of the eight matches. The three-match T20I series came first and the two teams came to the Providence Stadium for the final game, with India having won the first two without much trouble.
West Indies performed slightly better in the third but it was nowhere near enough.
Virat Kohli elected to bowl after winning the toss and Deepak Chahar proved the decision right. The pitch was by no measure green or swing-friendly. It was rather two-paced and offered a decent amount of turn for the spinners.
Still, the right-arm pacer put up an exhibition of swing bowling, swirling the ball both ways to reduce West Indies to 14/3. He bowled three overs, all in the powerplay, and went for just four runs at an economy rate of 1.33.
Kieron Pollard came to the rescue. The big all-rounder scored his first T20I half-century in over six years - a 45-ball 58 - and built partnerships with other middle-order batters. He wasn't the most fluent and played a lot of dot balls but kept the run rate going with six timely maximums, most of them down the ground.
Navdeep Saini, who was playing his debut T20I series, cleaned him up with a slower one after getting Nicholas Pooran out in the previous over. Debutant and Deepak's cousin, Rahul Chahar, also made his debut in the match and got West Indies' captain Carlos Brathwaite out.
The hosts slowed down further but Rovman Powell, who's captaining the current team, provided a strong finish, hitting Saini for two sixes in the final over to take them to a decent 146/6.
West Indies made things more interesting by getting Shikhar Dhawan out early for just 3 (5) as he mistimed a pull against express pacer Oshane Thomas to short third-man. His opening partner KL Rahul played a lot of dots early but got busy later to reach 20 (17) before being outfoxed and stumped against Finn Allen.
Kohli and wicketkeeper Rishabh Pant joined hands at the crease to put up one of the best T20 middle-order partnerships in a long time for India.
Kohli, as he does, dug in and adjusted to the pace of the wicket before bringing out the flurry of cover drives and flicks. Pant, on the other hand, looked like he was playing a video game where the stickiness of the wicket didn't matter, smashing a few beautiful cover drives through the line against Keemo Paul.
Both ran between the wickets well and hardly gave a sniff to the opposition. From 27/2 they added 106 in just 12.5 overs. Kohli was out for 59 in the 18th over. He tried to guide a yorker from Thomas to third-man but got it straight to point.
But the match was set for India. Pant sat on one knee and clipped Thomas over square leg on the fifth ball of the over and finished things off with a lofted drive for six against Brathwaite on the first ball of the last over.