(Cricket news) India have won their 12th consecutive bilateral series against the West Indies. The men in blue won the 2nd ODI by 2 wickets with 2 balls in hand in what was a thrilling match. There has been a lot of talk about one day internationals being a dying format but these two games prove otherwise. Both the games went down to the wire in the last over and the visitors came out on top both times. Nicholas Pooran won the toss and elected to bat first while Shikhar Dhawan announced one change. Avesh Khan came in place of Prasidh Krishna to make his ODI debut.
West Indies put on a formidable total of 311 runs on the board. Shai Hope scored an impressive 115 off 135 balls including 8 fours and 2 sixes. Hope anchored the Windies innings and played some beautiful strokes. Kyle Mayers and Sharmarh Brooks played good cameos to support hope. Skipper Pooran came in at number 5 and played a blistering knock to get West Indies to a good total. The big hitter scored 74 off 77 balls, hitting 6 maximums and a boundary. Avesh Khan's debut didn't go to plan as he went wicketless with an economy of 9. Deepak Hooda, Axar Patel and Yuzvendra Chahal got a scalp each while Shardul Thakur picked up 3 wickets. India did pick up wickets at the right time towards the end to restrict West Indies to 311/6.
India completed an incredible run chase with 2 balls to spare. Shubman Gill gave India a good start as he scored 43 off 49 balls, hitting 5 fours in the process. Shreyas Iyer scored his 2nd consecutive half century as he got a 71 ball 63. Iyer's classy innings consisted of 4 boundaries and a maximum. Sanju Samson also played a good knock of 54, he hit 3 fours and 3 sixes in the 51 balls that he faced. Deepak Hooda also played a nice little cameo but the player of the match was Axar Patel. The all-rounder scored 64 off just 35 balls to guide India to victory, hitting 3 boundaries and 5 maximums in his match winning innings.
India will be very happy with their performance in this series. There could be a few changes that happen in the next match as Ravindra Jadeja is likely to come back into the side but it will be difficult to leave Axar Patel out after his performance. It will be interesting to see if India try to accommodate both of them into the team in the next match. West Indies will obviously be very disappointed with the result but their performance has been very good. They just need to tick a few more boxes and capitalize on situations for results to come.
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