Indian batsmen battled hard on a difficult track as they managed 229 for seven in stipulated 50 overs against West Indies in a Celkon Mobile Cup Tri-Series match here today.
Rohit Sharma (60) scored a composed half-century while Suresh Raina contributed an useful 44 after the ‘Men In Blue’ were put into bat by West Indies’ stand-in captain Kieron Pollard.
Skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni battled cramps that hampered his running between the wickets badly yet he carried on manfully to chip in with 27 off 34 balls before he was cleaned up by a Tino Best inswinger.
Indian batsmen could manage only 17 boundaries in all apart from three sixes. The mandatory batting Powerplay also yielded only 27 runs which was a testimony to the fact that the track wasn’t conducive for ODI cricket.
Sharma frittered away another opportunity to score big as he got out after a well-compiled 60 off 89 balls.
Shikhar Dhawan, Virat Kohli and Karthik didn’t make significant contributions although Karthik was engaged in a half-century stand with Sharma.
Darren Sammy had a decent outing with the ball as he took two for 41 from his 10 overs. Kemar Roach also had identical figures of 2/41 from 10 overs. Best took 2/54 in 10 overs.
‘Man of the moment’ Shikhar Dhawan pulled Best and then hit a crisp cover drive off Roach to get couple of boundaries.
Sharma, whose performance has been much better since he started opening the innings started off with a six off Best — a slash that flew over third man.
However Roach had the last laugh when Dhawan (10) failed to check his uppish drive which the bowler caught on the second attempt.
Virat Kohli (11, 21 balls) struggled to get going on a slow pitch before he tried an expansive drive off Darren Sammy but Chris Gayle standing wide of first slip took a fantastic one-handed catch diving to his right.
For Karthik, it was an onerous task to rotate strike as Sammy was in the middle of a good spell where he kept things tight. With the ball not coming onto the bat, the two batsmen proceeded on a sedate note during the initial phase.