India vs West Indies 2013 : 1st ODI Match Report

The 1st ODI of this home series, seemed a mere continuation of what surfaced during the test series, earlier in the tour, with the visitors from the Carribean Isles, failing to pack a punch against the Indian line-up. After winning the toss, the Windies opted to bat first, but the run-out of Chris Gayle in the very 1st over itself, was enough to dent the Windies chances. Some consolidation efforts did surface, thanks to the likes of Johnson Charles and Darren Bravo, but regular fall of wickets, and a frail tail, which barely added 28 runs for the last five wickets, saw Windies fall a lot short of where they ideally would have liked to be, during the interval. The spinners in Ravindra Jadeja and Suresh Raina, appeared to be the pick of the bowlers, scalping 3-a-piece. 211 on the board was never gonna be enough to challenge the mighty Indian batting line-up, and Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli justified so with almost run-a-ball half-centuries, to help wrap the game with 88 balls to spare, and 6 wickets in hand.

Turning Point -> The batting order collapse, with Darren Bravo’s dismissal, saw the last 5 wickets go down for just 28 runs, that too when Darren Bravo, had just started to look good, and set for a big score, with almost 12 overs to go in their innings. The collapse left the Windies side atleast 50-60 runs short. Also to pose a challenging total against the Indian batting line-up you need Chris Gayle to fire all cylinders and not to warm the benches of the dressing room, post a second ball run-out dismissal.
Stand-out performances -> The Indian spin trio in Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin and Suresh Raina did an awesome job, sharing 8 wickets between themselves, thereby both stemming the flow of runs, and taking wickets at regular intervals. The batting also saw a wonderful partnership of 133 runs of 130 balls between Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma.

Disappointing performances-> The Windies batting order did disappoint with Chris Gayle departing for naught, and the likes of Dwayne Bravo, Sammy and the tail, falling cheaply, rather than playing out the 50 overs, and getting their team to a decent total. Too many rash shots compounded to the misery caused by a few well-bowled deliveries from the Indian spinners, resulting in the lower-order batting collapse.

Man-of-the-Match-> As usual we got to see Virat Kohli coming to the party in yet another ODI chase. With Shikhar Dhawan falling cheaply, the onus was on him and Rohit Sharma to steady the ship, and Virat Kohli, with his elegant strokes did just that.  He tried to play most of the game with a straight bat, and when he hit the ball, they just stayed hit. A better than a run-a-ball knock of 86, laced with 9 fours and 2 maximums, were enough to keep the Kochi crowd, on its feet during the chase. Quite rightfully, he deserved to be nominated the Man-of-the-Match.
Signing off then, with a sincere hope than the remaining two ODIs see West Indies, putting up a semblance of a fight, and dragging India out of its comfort zone of comfortable victories. So much to await then in 3 days’ time, as the teams move to Vishakhapatnam, for the Sunday game.