In the first ODI between West Indies and India, 15 wickets fell in fewer than 46 overs on a Kensington Oval field that offered bounce and carry for seamers and turn for spinners. West Indies were all out for 114 in 23 overs after being brought in. India, who moved their white-ball experts up the order, lost five wickets while chasing the target before Rohit Sharma scored the winning runs while batting at position seven.
At the post-game presentation, Rohit admitted, “To be honest, I never thought the pitch was going to play like that.” The run-scoring was really challenging, and it offered everything for seamers and spinners. But it took a tremendous effort from our bowling unit to keep them to that score.
“We never anticipated losing five wickets, but it was nice to give many of the new ODI players some game time. But first, it was crucial for us to position ourselves well. We made a huge effort to limit them to 115 [114], and I believed we had the decisive advantage we required. As a result, we decided to give some of the players who hadn’t played much cricket recently a chance.
I don’t know when they will have time in the future, but whenever we have a chance, we’ll attempt to fit all of these guys in.
In addition, Rohit gave Mukesh Kumar accolades for playing his first ODI after he made his Test debut earlier in the tour. Alick Athanaze missed to clear a bounding Ravindra Jadeja at backward point on the seamer’s first delivery, which went short and wide. Despite this, the seamer took his first wicket in the format.
Rohit stated, “Mukesh has been fantastic. He can swing the new ball, has some pace, and is also quite consistent, as we saw in the Test series. So, we’re interested in what he has to say. It was good to watch him playing with the white ball, too, as I hadn’t seen much of him in domestic cricket either.
Shai Hope, the captain of the West Indies, bemoaned his batters’ lack of effort. West Indies have reached 88 for 3 with Hope appearing to be in complete control after losing three wickets in the first nine overs. After Jadeja sent Shimron Hetmyer back, West Indies lost their final seven wickets for a total of 26 runs.
“Too many words come to mind, but let’s just say we didn’t play the way we needed to,” Hope said. As a batting squad, we must find methods to score on such a difficult wicket.
Anyone who was present could observe what took place there. Even though the Indian bowlers bowled rather well on this surface and any 9.30am start in the Caribbean will be challenging for batting, we once again failed to score enough runs.
