West Indies came incredibly close to beating the target in the first one-day match despite having an inexperienced batting team, with skipper Nicholas Pooran even admitting that they haven’t found the proper ODI template yet. They missed by just 4 runs. Shamarh Brooks, Brandon King, and Kyle Mayers all made crucial efforts to keep the home team in the game. Romario Shepherd and Akeal Hosein came close to being heroes for the West Indies, but India ultimately prevailed by four runs.
West Indies batted with total supremacy as the decent start by Kyle Mayers and Shamarah Brooks, despite losing Shai Hope in an early dismissal. Kyle scored 75 runs while Brooks managed to pull of 46 runs before both were cleaned up by Shardul Thakur. Thereafter Brandon King continued the dominance and India were in great trouble as the young team led by new skipper Shikhar Dhawan was finding hard solutions to these dominant smashing shots. However Chahal managed to pull some bits and pieces but the magical inning of Akeal Hosein and Romario Shepherd will be close to the Windies’ heart as their score of 32 runs and 39 runs respectively made it close to the target but just 3 runs away from the win which was disheartening to watch. Both the batsmen Akeal and Romario remained not-out.
With a close win by the blues, this competition looks fierce and as expected that it would be one sided, it does not seem like that anymore, specially after the West Indies’ batting dominance. This battle will continue and the fans of both the nation will watch out for the next ODI soon.