West Indies passed with flying colours in the opening match of the ODI series in Chennai despite of playing on a difficult ground that ceases good strokes. Chasing mammoth of a target of 288 seemed like a walk in the park with two century contribution delivered by Shimron Hetmyer and Shai Hope.
India fell short for many reasons, firstly India is a good chaser and usually finds itself in difficult position when put to bat first. India didn’t get down with a good start after losing three crucial wickets too early into the innings. Although, Rishabh Pant and Shreyas Iyer put in a great effort to achieve a decent target but the beginning had already caused a lot of damage.
Exclusion of Yuzvendra Chahal in the Playing XI forced Virat Kohli to bring in Shivam Dube and Kedar Jadhav who were no match for strong bowling attack of the West Indies. While, Indian bowlers failed to break the strong partnership of Hetmyer and Hope.
“It (pitch) played differently under lights. I think they batted really well, you can’t take that out of the equation. But I think the ball wasn’t holding enough for the fast bowlers. Hetmyer was outstanding and Shai as well.” Kohli stated in post match conference.