Shreyas Iyer’s half-century and top bowling from the spinners gave India a 88-run win over the West Indies in the fifth and final T20I in Florida. also India took the series with a thumping 4-1 margin.
India won the toss and opted to bat first. They made four changes in the playing eleven with Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan opening.
West Indies made four changes with Odean Smith, Shamarh Brooks, Hayden Walsh and Keemo Paul returning to the side.
With the pitch getting slow by the minute, the opener had to fire. Nonetheless, it was only Iyer who did all the firing, picking up 64 runs.
He was ably supported by Deepak Hooda who got 38 runs. In the end, it needed some meaty blows from Hardik Pandya to push India past 170 mark.
Nevertheless, Odean Smith picked up figures of 3/33 to restrict India to 188/7.
Chasing 189 to win, West Indies were all out for 100 runs in 15.4 overs.
Shimron Hetmyer was the highest scorer for West Indies with 56 but none of his colleagues supported him.
The next best batter was Shamarh Brooks who made 13. Ravi Bishnoi took four wickets, while Axar Patel and Kuldeep Yadav got three apiece.
Once Kuldeep Yadav (4-1-12-3) caught rival skipper Nicholas Pooran (3) plumb in-front with a flighted delivery.
Ravi Bishnoi (2.4-0-16-4) also got into the act and snapped his share of wickets.
Axar Patel (3-1-15-3), who quickly removed makeshift opener Jason Holder (0), Shamarah Brooks (13) and Devon Thomas (10) with three arm balls on a track where balls stopped and gripped off the surface.
the Caribbean batting line-up never had the wherewithal to cope with the quality of Indian spinners.
“We were just not good enough. We didn’t learn from our mistakes. We just weren’t up to the challenge, just didn’t put enough partnerships. To come up against tough teams, we need to be good in execution.
Be it in the batting group or bowling group, we have a lot of catching up to do. I just hope that we as a team learn from these losses.
We’re building towards the World Cup and hopefully we can do that right. (On Holder opening the batting) Obviously King and Mayers didn’t play today, so we needed someone to open. Just thought of giving him an opportunity to bat higher up.
We all know what he can do down the order. It (playing two spinners) is something we have to think about in the future. India have shown why they are better than us in this series.” West Indies captain Nicholas Pooran said At the post-match presentation.
Brief Scores: India 188/7 in 20 overs (Shreyas Iyer 64; Odean Smith 3-33) beat West Indies 100 all out in 15.4 overs (Shimron Hetmyer 56; Ravi Bishnoi 4-16, Kuldeep Yadav 3-12, Axar Patel 3-15) by 88 runs.