Spinners Ravindra Jadeja and Kuldeep Yadav bowled exceptionally well and became the first duo of Indian left-arm spinners to take seven wickets or more in an ODI encounter. The pair reached the feat during India’s five-wicket victory over West Indies in Barbados on Thursday. This is the very first time in 49 years that pair of left-arm spinners of India have taken seven wickets or more in an ODI match.
Kuldeep was the star among the Indian bowlers with figures of 4/6 in just three overs while Jadeja took three wickets after giving away 37 runs.
"The way the pacers bowled was really good, Mukesh and Shardul in particular. And then Jadeja and I could handle things, the ball was spinning a bit. We had to control our lengths and the wickets were easy to get. I have been working on my rhythm and it has been amazing. The ball is coming out nicely and I’m very pleased with it. I have also been varying the pace and in the white-ball format, my focus is on hitting the right lengths," Kuldeep said during the innings break.
Kuldeep alongside Jadeja tormented the Windies’ batting order, helping India to a five-wicket victory with more than 27 overs to spare. Earlier, India outplayed them in two-game Test series by 1-0 and the home team once again were restricted to just 114 off 23 overs as they were completely clueless while playing against the Indian spinners.
For West Indies, it was the skipper who top-scored with the bat after scoring 43 runs. Apart from Hope and Alick Athanaze, no West Indies batter could manage to cross the 20-run mark in the series opener against India at Bridgetown.
The Indian team while chasing down a modest total came up with a lot of batting changes in the order with Shubman Gill opening the innings with Ishan Kishan. Suryakumar came in at the 3 spot while Hardik Pandya was the next batter in the order. Rohit Sharma and senior batter Virat Kohli batted down the order. Skipper Sharma finally walked into bat at number 7 and remained unbeaten on 12. The Indian team were always seen dominating the game and kudos to Ishan Kishan’s 52-run knock that helped India chase down the modest target.