Win the toss and field first, with the assumption, or expectation, based on evidence, that dew would make bowling in the second half difficult, especially for spinners. West Indies did it all perfectly, and set up a 224-run chase in Indore in the third T20I against India, but the dew just didn’t arrive.
And “that’s how it goes,” Shamar Springer said after the game, West Indies having gone down by 14 runs to slip to 1-2 in the five-match series.
“I thought that the Indian guys really executed it well today in the middle, kind of stifled us and left us with eventually too much runs at the end,” Springer said at the press conference after West Indies finished on 209 for 7 chasing India’s 223. “We thought the wicket would play a little better. The ball kept a bit lower than we expected.
“Also we thought there may be some dew in the second half, but there wasn’t really any dew. And as I said, the nature of the wicket was a little low [and] the Indian bowlers used the wicket a lot better than us.”
Abhishek Sharma started more cautiously than he usually does after West Indies opted to bowl, scoring in singles till the third ball of the third over, when he played Roston Chase over extra cover for four. That made it 9 from six balls, the half-century came up off 12 more balls, and the hitting stopped at 69 from 30 balls, Springer getting him to top-edge a pull and taking the return catch.
“He’s a world-class player. Kudos to him, for sure. But I guess our Plan B was to just be as defensive as possible and try to make him get singles and twos rather than boundaries. Nothing too extravagant,” Springer said. “It was just a matter of trying to pull him back and be as defensive as possible. That was really it. Because there’s not much control you could really have here.
“I mean, the wickets are so good and those players are world-class players. They’re the best for a reason. So, there’s not really much you could really do besides be defensive.”
The contest between Abhishek and Chase at the top was a good one. Chase had gotten Abhishek out in the first and second T20Is with his offspin, and here, Abhishek was more cautious at the start. Till he decided to take Chase on and send him out of the attack for a while.
“He’s been underrated so far, but in our dressing room, we really appreciate what he really does,” Springer said of Chase, not a typical T20I player but someone who has become a part of the team in recent years for the stability he provides to the batting and the overs he can send down.
“He brings that control and calmness to our team. He’s the X-factor so far.”
Meanwhile, Rovman Powell and Sherfane Rutherford have been reprimanded for breaching Level 1 of the ICC Code of Conduct, and handed one demerit point each. In the sixth over of the West Indies innings in Ranchi, Powell hit the ball away after being dismissed, while Rutherford showed dissent at the umpire’s decision in the 13th over, after a delivery was ruled legitimate. Both players have admitted their offences. This marks their first demerit points in a 24-month period; four inside 24 months leads to an automatic suspension.
Cricinfo
