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India vs West Indies 1st T20I Highlights: Debutant Navdeep Saini ensures India start the tour on top note
Playing his first international fixture, Navdeep Saina bowled beautifully at Florid to ensure India register a comprehensive win in the first T20I against West Indies. Go through the highlights of match
An exceptional spell of fast-bowling by debutant Navdeep Saini on Saturday ensured India seal a comprehensive victory in the first T20I against West Indies to start the tour on the top note. The youngster bowled with alarming pace and struck the right lines to put strong Windies batting line-up on the back foot.
Indian skipper Virat Kohli, earlier, after finding luck with the coin, decided to bowl first. The pitch looked to be quite helpful for bowlers. Making most of these conditions, Indian bowlers started off the proceedings brilliantly. Spinner Washington Sundar removed opener John Campbell in the very first over for nought while Bhuvneshwar Kumar left Evin Lewis clueless with beauty to reduce hosts to 8-2.
Nicholas Pooran showed a bit of touch in between, however, he couldn’t last long as Saina made him nick one to the keeper. Wickets kept falling from the one end while experienced campaigner Kieron Pollard was glued to the other side. He ended up scoring run-a-ball 49 runs, helping West Indies post 95 runs on board.
For India, Navdeep Saini finished with the figures of 4-1-17-3, Bhuvenshwar scalped a brace and other bowlers also chipped in with a wicket each.
The target wasn’t a challenging one, however, India too didn’t find a good start. Opener Shikhar Dhawan departed in the second over as he was trapped in between the wickets by Sheldon Cottrell. Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli stitched a small partnership of 28 runs before the former was sent back. Rishabh Pant also followed Rohit after scoring a duck.
Kohli again added some more runs for the sixth wicket with Manish Pandey. Though Windies bowlers again struck, removing both the set batsmen.
Lastly, the trio of Krunal Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar ensured India cross the line with four wickets in hand and 16 balls to spare. For hosts, Cottrell, Narine and Kemo Paul scalped two wickets each.
