Hetmyer makes India pay
Chennai, December 15
Shimron Hetmyer smashed a career-best 139 ahead of next week’s IPL auction, toying with an ordinary-looking Indian attack to set up an eight-wicket win for West Indies in the ODI series opener here today.
We thought six bowling options will be good enough, specially with the pitch being slow and Kedar as an option. But it played differently under lights. I think they batted really well, you can’t take that out of the equation. But I think the ball wasn’t holding enough for the fast bowlers
Virat Kohli
Jadeja run out
In the 48th over, Ravindra Jadeja went for a quick single and Roston Chase had a direct hit at the striker’s end. The on-field umpire Shaun George did not give it out. However, the umpire made a late referral to the third umpire after the dismissal was shown on the big screen.
The thought is simple, the fielder asked ‘how is that’ and the umpire said ‘not out’. The dismissal ends there. The people sitting on the TV outside cannot tell the fielders to then tell the umpire to review it again. I’ve never seen that happen in cricket. People sitting outside can’t dictate what happens on the field. I think that’s exactly what happened there
Virat Kohli
I just try to hit it as hard as I can to be honest. I was just hoping to get it over the ropes. This hundred means a lot, because the last one I had was at the start of the year.
Shimron Hetmyer
Chasing 287 on a slow surface was expected to be a challenging task but thanks to Hetmyer (139 off 106) and opener Shai Hope (102 not out off 150) the visitors raced to victory in 47.5 overs. The duo shared a decisive 218-run stand for the second wicket after the fall of Sunil Ambris in the fifth over.
The lack of a specialist fifth bowler hurt India as the combination of debutant Shivam Dube (0/68 in 7.5 overs) and Kedar Jadhav (0/11 in one over) leaked 79 runs in 8.5 overs overs.
Hetmyer was unstoppable en route to his fifth ODI century, smashing as many as seven sixes, including the one that hit the roof. Most of his big hits went sailing over the deep mid-wicket boundary. Hope gave solid support to Hetmyer and deservingly completed his eighth ODI hundred.
Nicholas Pooran, another talented southpaw like Hetmyer, hit back-to-back boundaries to register a memorable win for West Indies.
The second game of the three-match series will be played in Visakhapatnam on Wednesday.
Pant gets going
Earlier, Rishabh Pant struck his maiden half-century to silence his critics as India shrugged off a poor start.
Two players who were being keenly-watched, Shreyas Iyer (70 off 88 balls) and Pant (71 off 69) paired up for a 114-run stand for the fourth wicket after India lost opener KL Rahul (6) and skipper Virat Kohli (4) in the seventh over. It was Iyer’s third consecutive half-century. Rohit Sharma lasted 56 balls for his slowish 36, also struggling on a slow surface.
Later, a quickfire half-century partnership between Kedar Jadhav (40 off 35) and Ravindra Jadeja (21 off 21), who batted ahead of debutant Shivam Dube, provided the thrust in the slog overs.
Trouble at 80/3
India got off to a slow start as Sheldon Cottrell bowled two maiden overs to start with. After Rahul’s dismissal, Kohli walked in to a roar from the Chepauk crowd and played an imperious on-drive off the fourth ball he faced. In an anti-climax, he fell the next ball, bowled off the inside edge as he tried to run one from Cottrell down to the third-man region. Rohit appeared set for a big score before he hit Alzarri Joseph’s first ball of the day tamely to Kieron Pollard at mid-wicket.
It was then Iyer and Pant came together, at 80/3. After taking their time to get going, the two played some splendid shots and were not afraid to hit the ball in the air. The fact that the first six, hit by Pant, of the innings came in the 28th over is an indicator of the slow proceedings. — PTI
Scoreboard
India
Runs Balls 4s 6s
R Sharma c Pollard b Joseph 36 56 6 0
KL Rahul c Hetmyer b Cottrell 6 15 1 0
V Kohli b Cottrell 4 4 1 0
S Iyer c Pollard b Joseph 70 88 5 1
R Pant c Hetmyer b Pollard 71 69 7 1
K Jadhav c Pollard b Paul 40 35 3 1
R Jadeja run out (Chase) 21 21 2 0
S Dube c Holder b Paul 9 6 1 0
D Chahar not out 6 8 0 0
M Shami not out 0 1 0 0
Extras: (b-5, lb-5, nb-3, w-11) 24
Total: (8 wickets; 50 overs) 287
FOW: 1-21, 2-25, 3-80, 4-194, 5-210, 6-269, 7-269, 8-282
Bowling O M R W
Sheldon Cottrell 10 3 46 2
Jason Holder 8 0 45 0
Hayden Walsh 5 0 31 0
Keemo Paul 7 0 40 2
Alzarri Joseph 9 1 45 2
Roston Chase 7 0 42 0
Kieron Pollard 4 0 28 1
West Indies
Runs Balls 4s 6s
S Hope not out 102 151 7 1
S Ambris lbw b Chahar 9 8 2 0
S Hetmyer c Iyer b Shami 139 106 11 7
N Pooran not out 29 23 4 0
Extras: (lb-4, nb-1, w-7) 12
Total: (2 wickets; 47.5 overs) 291
FOW: 1-11, 2-229
Bowling O M R W
Deepak Chahar 10 1 48 1
Mohammed Shami 9 1 57 1
Kuldeep Yadav 10 0 45 0
Shivam Dube 7.5 0 68 0
Kedhar Jadhav 1 0 11 0
Ravindra Jadeja 10 0 58 0
Player of the Match: Shimron Hetmyer
