WI vs IND, 1st T20I: India Begin Caribbean Tour With 4-Wicket Win, Lead Series 1-0

With this win, India took a 1-0 lead in the 3-match T20I. Both the sides will lock horns in the 2nd T20I on Sunday at the same venue

The men in blue registered their first victory since their unfortunate exit from the ICC Cricket Cricket World Cup 2019. Virat Kohli & Co defeated the West Indies by 4 wickets on Saturday at Lauderhill, Florida. With this win, India took a 1-0 lead in the 3-match T20I. After bundling up the hosts for a paltry 95, the star opening duo of Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma took the field. However, in the pursuit of a 96-run target, they failed to provide a solid start as Sheldon Cottrell trapped Dhawan in the front in the second over, drawing the first blood pretty early. Rohit was then accompanied by skipper Virat Kohli. A lot has been talked about the rift between them but their on-field camaraderie helped the team with 28 more runs before the Indian vice-captain threw away his wicket to Sunil Narine in the 7th over. Rishabh Pant’s dismissal turned out to be the biggest disappointment of the match as he claimed a golden duck. Narine had him right after getting hold of Rohit. Kohli continued anchoring the innings with Manish Pandey who came back in the Indian dressing room after 8 months. They added another 32 runs before Keemo Paul rattled Pandey’s stumps and sent him packing on 19. Earlier, seamer Navdeep Saini made a memorable international debut by grabbing two important wickets off consecutive deliveries to help India restrict the West Indies to 95/9 in 20 overs in the first T20 international here on Saturday. Coming to bowl in the fifth over after Washington Sundar and Bhuvneshwar Kumar had removed openers John Campbell and Evin Lewis for a pair of ducks, Saini (3/17) snared the wickets of Nicholas Pooran (20) and Shimron Hetmyer (0) off back-to-back deliveries to reduce the hosts to 28/4 after five overs. West Indies could never recover from there even with comeback man Kieron Pollard top-scoring with a run-a-ball 49 (4x2, 6x4) before Saini got his back in the final over which he finished with a wicket maiden to cap off a dream debut. Besides Saini, pace spearhead Bhuvneshwar returned figures of 2/19 while Sundar (1/18), Khaleel Ahmed (1/8), Krunal Pandya (1/20) and Ravindra Jadeja (1/13) picked up one wicket each.