Before rain played spoilsport, the match started after a delay of nearly 40 minutes.
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India captain MS Dhoni rued his execution after his team suffered a thrilling one-run loss to West Indies in their first Twenty20.
He did exactly that and much to the distraught of the Indian skipper, Bravo and West Indies celebrated the fact that they had just gotten out of jail. It will also give us time to spend more time in the USA, we played back to back games. Yes, it will be a cramped schedule, but modern-day cricketers won’t mind it. Also the money making ability of this place, the spectators will come, the time suits broadcasters. The timing suits us. So it is a win-win situation.
“Runs on the board are always runs on the board and the spirit and attitude that the guys had when the game was actually called off was that India got a bit lucky with the rain”, said Brathwaite when asked by a reporter if West Indies got lucky because of the rain. “For me as a young leader to know and lead the players is an exciting experience”.
There was no dearth of box-office names on show on the weekend in Florida, but in a big disappointment to the crowd Chris Gayle was missing from the West Indies line-up because of injury.
West Indies struggled to 143 all out in their innings with slow bowler Amit Mishra claiming a career best 3-24.
West Indies´ total of 245-6 was just short of Australia´s 248 against England in Southampton in 2013 while Sri Lanka´s 260 against Kenya at Johannesburg in 2007 remains the highest ever global T20 total. But the Florida pitch – and eventually the weather – turned its back on the strokemakers on Sunday.
The carnage started from the word go as the opening duo of Johnson Charles (79) and Lewis clobbered pacer Mohammed Shami for a six and two fours in the opening over. Ashwin foxed a charging Lendl Simmons (19) with a wide ball and had him stumped.
West Indies crawled past the 100-run mark in the 14th over; on Saturday, they were into three figures in the eighth.
Two wickets in the 16th over off the bowling of Jadeja put the brakes on the West Indian innings and for the first time the Indians could pose some sort of trouble for their rampaging opponents.
Earlier, the match started after a delay of 40 minutes due to some technical issues but it was a refreshing sight to see Bhuvneshwar Kumar started off with two dot balls.
Shami then ended the islanders’ innings as he clean bowled Samuel Badree (1) in the 19th over.
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Despite losing the match, India put the solid fight thanx to the heroics of KL Rahul, Rohit Sharma, and MS Dhoni. And, after Marlon Samuels somehow dropped Dhoni off the first ball, India’s veteran captain was left needing just two from the final delivery to win and only one to force a decisive Super Over.
