India strolled to a comfortable win in the second ODI of the series against West Indies at the Queen’s Park Oval in Trinidad against the West Indies. The Indians won a rain-interrupted game by seven wickets and with 20 balls to spare thanks to the superb 81 made by Virat Kohli and another half-century off the bat of Parthiv Patel.
India needed to make 241 to win the game in their 50 overs but two rain breaks during the Indian innings effectively scuttled the chances of having a full match. It was the second rain interruption with the Indians at 100 for one in 22 overs that brought the Duckworth-Lewis system into play and the target was reduced to 183 from 37 overs – effectively meaning that the Indians needed 83 from the remaining 15 overs to clinch.
With Kohli and Patel at the wicket and going well, this did not seem too difficult. Patel did get out, caught down the leg-side to the bowling of Anthony Martin but Kohli was propped by the aggressive Suresh Raina who got busy as soon as he arrived at the wicket.
A vital 45 runs were added by the pair, but more vitally, it took them only 29 balls to do so and that took the side to within touching distance of the target. Kohli tried to finish off the game in a hurry by skipping down the pitch to Devendra Bishoo but only managed to accord a simple catch to Kieron Pollard, but by then the Indians needed only 10 for a win. Rohit Sharma joined Raina and the Indians got to their target quickly enough.
Earlier, West Indies began rather well through their opening three partnerships. First it was Lendl Simmons and Kirk Edwards, who overcame their issues with spin bowling in their 57-run opening stand. This was followed by Simmons getting to his half-century and helping Ramnaresh Sarwan to his in a superb second wicket partnership of 67 before Marlon Samuels joined Sarwan to get to another half-century.
It was at 175 for two at the end of the 36th over that one thought that the West Indian side could get going and score another 100 in the last 14 overs and set-up a challenging 275. Instead, they collapsed to the spin of Amit Mishra, who got four wickets for 31 and Munaf Patel who rounded up the innings with 3/35 in his ten. It was a shame that the side managed only 240 in the end.