Barbados, May 09: India crashed out of T20 World Cup after losing to West Indies by 14 runs. India’s chase of 170 runs seems to be in tatters as they kept on losing wickets in quick succession to be reduced to 114/6 against West Indies in their must-win Super Eight match of the T20 World cup.
Starting on disastrous note as they lost both their opening batsmen very cheaply in the first quarter of their innings; while Murali Vijay (7) lost his wicket in the fourth over itself, Gautam Gambhir lost his in the next for 15 runs.
India’s innings steady a bit but after sometime, there was again no stopping to their loss of wickets as they lost Rohit Sharma (5), Suresh Raina (32) and Yuvraj Singh (12) in quick succession.
Later, Yusuf Pathan and captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni hit some occasional boundaries to reduced the gap between their score and the target, but their campaign was too cut short after Pathan lost his wicket for 17 runs.
Earlier, a boisterous 97-run inning by Chris Gayle helped West Indies post a decent 169/6 against India in their do-or-die Super Eight encounter of the ICC World T20 here on Sunday.
Gayle showed no signs of exhaustion in the entire first innings as he, along with his opener partner Shivnarine Chanderpaul, gave a very steady start to their team’s batting campaign.
The modest show turned pompous in the latter overs as Gayle hit some almighty skiers to almost single-handedly help West Indies post a competitive score of 169.
In the 12th over, however, India missed a vital chance of getting rid of Gayle. Gayle miscued a delivery by Ashish Nehra and hit an almighty skier. Both, Dhoni and Yusuf Pathan went for the catch but due to a heavy miscommunication, dropped it. This, indeed, was a lifeline for Gayle, who had scored his half-century by then.
After that, the Indian bowlers could find no key to unlock Gayle’s form until in the last over, when he was dismissed as a result of an unfortunate run-out, that also left him three runs short of his century.
A steady start that was given to the West Indies crumbled in second half of the innings. First Chanderpaul (23) lost his wicket in the 12th over, then Darren Sammy (19) got dismissed in the 16th.
Later Kieron Pollard (17), Dwayne Bravo (1), Ramnaresh Sarwan (0) and Gayle lost their wickets in the last 2 overs, thus ending the Windies innings at 169/6.
Ashish Nehra remained the star for India as he picked up three crucial wickets of Chanderpaul, Bravo and Sarwan.
–Agencies