Indian bowlers led by the deadly Mohammed Shami produced yet another splendid performance to put their team on the cusp of a semi-final berth with a 125-run rout of the West Indies in their sixth World Cup encounter here Thursday.
With 11 points, India are now almost through and another winin their next three games will seal their position in the top four as WestIndies were knocked out with two games remaining.
India scored 268 for 7, riding on half-centuries by Virat Kohli(72 off 82 balls) and Mahendra Singh Dhoni (56 off 61 balls) and it turned outto be good enough as West Indies were shot out for 124 in only 34.2 overs.
In two successive matches now, the bowlers have more thancovered up for a mediocre show from the batsmen, save skipper Kohli.
Shami (4/16 in 6.2 overs) was at his best in the first spellas he first bounced Chris Gayle out and then bowled an off-cutter to removeShai Hope.
In his second spell, he got Shimron Hetmyer while new ballpartner Jasprit Bumrah (2/9 in 6 overs) was fast and accurate getting twowickets of successive deliveries.
Kuldeep Yadav (1/35 in 9 overs) and Yuzvendra Chahal (2/39in 7 overs) were too hot for the Caribbean batsmen on a track, where runscoring became increasingly difficult with passage of time.
The last seven wickets fell for 63 runs in a space of 14overs which indicated the Caribbean plight.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar with his incisive swing bowling has alwaysbeen Chris Gayle’s (6 off 19 balls) nemesis but it was in-form Shami, who drewthe first blood with a short ball that climbed on the big man and the mistimedpull was taken by Kedar Jadhav, running sideways from his mid-on position.
Hope, West Indies’ next big hope, got one from Shami thatcame in breaching his defence.
Sunil Ambris (31, 40 balls) and Nicholas Pooran (28 off 50balls) steadied the ship with a 55-run stand before both were dismissed inquick succession.
Hardik Pandya trapped Ambris plumb in-front before Pooranmistimed a lofted shot to Shami in the deep.
The skipper Jason Holder then played a rank bad shot offChahal as West Indies were knocked out of the contest at the halfway stage,reeling at 98 for five.
When India batted, Dhoni scratched around for the betterpart of his innings before exploding in the final over to take India to 268 for7 on a track that look good for batting.
There has been a lot of talk about Dhoni’s failure to rotatethe strike and Thursday’s batting effort on another dry and slow track willonly amplify the criticism before he got 16 in the final over to finish on 56off 61 deliveries with three fours and two sixes.
More than his strike-rate, his percentage of dot ballsremains a concern for India.
If India played 152 dot balls against Afghanistan, therun-less delivery count was 163 in this game.
It was Pandya, whose 46 off 38 balls took India past 250-runmark after skipper Kohli scored his fourth half-century.
The middle-order looked jittery again with skipper Kohli notgetting enough support from the other batsmen.
In fact, Dhoni’s rustiness rubbed off a bit on the Indiancaptain, who ultimately gifted his wicket to his opposite number.
Kohli hit eight boundaries with stand-out shot being alofted drive over covers off Oshane Thomas.
Veteran Kemar Roach (3/36) bowled fast and fuller lengthdeliveries using the off-cutters to good effect while skipper Holder (2/33 in10 overs) was economical, troubling the batsmen with back of the lengthdeliveries.
Left-arm spinner Fabian Allen (0/52 in 10 overs) didn’t getany wicket but a crucial aspect of his spell was the last five overs in whichhe gave away only 15 runs.
This was another left-arm spinner after Mitchell Santner and Shakib Al Hasan, who has now troubled Dhoni with his wicket-to-wicket bowling. When Holder and Roach bowled fast and back of length, the former India captain found it difficult to manoeuvre the bowling but the final score turned out to be much above par. PTI