Riding on the excellent opening and finishing efforts for Rohit Sharma and Suryakumar Yadav respectively, India on Wednesday secured a comfortable 6-wickets victory against the West Indies in the 1st T20 of a 3-match series at the Eden Gardens. Moreover, Venkatesh Iyer finished off the match with a massive six in the penultimate ball of the 19th over and pushed India beyond the finish line.
Earlier in the match, debutant Ravi Bishnoi, who was a part of India’s U19 World Cup campaign in 2020 and the Punjab Kings in IPL 2020 and 2021, helped India to restrict India within a total of 157 for 7. The leg-spinner delivered his dream debutant spell with his figures of 2/17.
Skipper Rohit Sharma and his opening partner Ishan Kishan provided India with a strong start in Wednesday’s match in Kolkata. Despite Kishan’s struggles at the other end, Rohit helped India to reach 58 for no loss at the end of the powerplay. Rohit scored 40 off 19 balls while bossing over the Caribbean bowlers.
However, India’s middle-order disaster was exposed once again after Virat Kohli (17 off 13 balls), Ishan Kishan (35 off 42 balls) and Rishabh Pant (8 off 8 balls) lost their wickets in quick succession. It was only because of the 5th wicket partnership between Surya and Iyer that India comfortably went past the 158-runs target. Yadav added a crucial 34 off 18 balls to the scoreboard while Iyer scored 24 off 13 balls.’
Notably, Bishnoi’s impressive debutant performance led him to join the elite list of India bowlers who have picked up 2 or more wickets on their debut in the shortest format of the game. In fact, skipper Rohit had nothing but praises for the young leg-spinner.
“Bishnoi is a very talented guy which is why we drafted him into the squad straight away. We see something different in him. He’s got lot of variations and skill-set with him,” Rohit said after the match.
“He can bowl at any stage and it gives us a lot of options to rotate the other bowlers. Very happy with his first game for India and he’s got a bright future and it’s just about us now on how we use him,” he added.
India will now be looking forward to gaining an unbeatable 2-0 lead as they will meet West Indies in the 2nd match of the series on Friday at the same venue.
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