India v West Indies 1st ODI Result: Sehwag dodges a bullet

Bat and ball / Jamie "The Pacman" Pacheco / 29 November 2011 / Leave a Comment

A 'Viru' serious matter. Skipper Sehwag gets bolwed to put India in deep trouble but they got there in the end.

"But up stepped the nearly-man of Indian cricket. Few players have been dropped and re-called by the World Champions as often as Rohit Sharma in recent years and the selectors will have been glad he was included this time round."

India managed to chase the West Indies' total down in the end but it was not without incident or drama this afternoon...

India almost threw away a winning position for the second time in a week before crawling over the line in the 1st ODI against the West Indies.

Captained by Virender Sehwag in the absence of the rested MS Dhoni, they were set 212 to win after the West Indies wasted a good chance to post a competitive total after building a good platform courtesy of a well-judged 60 from Darren Bravo. Too many wickets were lost in quick succession and too many dot balls littered the scorecard when the spin attack of Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja took centre stage, the exact same story as when England played India last month.

India were trading at around [1.15] at the change of innings.

The start to the run chase was a brisk one, Sehwag and Parthiv Patel scoring quickly as a combination of aggressive strokeplay, wayward bowling and front foot no-balls handed them the initiative. But wickets all of a sudden started to tumble: Patel was caught at backward point, Gautam Ghambir edged a short one to the keeper, Virat Kohli was clean bowled, Sehwag fell the same way shortly after.

But up stepped the nearly-man of Indian cricket. Few players have been dropped and re-called by the World Champions as often as Rohit Sharma in recent years and the selectors will have been glad he was included this time round. The right-hander played beautifully for 72 as wickets continued to tumble at the other end. The run rate was never really an issue because of the low target they were chasing but when Sharma was bowled off his pads and Vinay Kumar was caught when trying to drive to long on, the possibility of being bowled out was very on the cards, with numbers ten and eleven at the crease.

Having traded at [1.03] with Sharma marshalling the chase, India were out to [3.3] with 11 runs still needed. But a late cut from the bat of Varun Aaron to the boundary and a straight drive for four from Umesh Yadav got India over the line and put them 1-0 up in the Series.