West Indies skipper Kieron Pollard on Friday (18th November) expressed his disappointment after his side suffered a 8-run loss in the second T20I against India in Kolkata. He said that the batters did well to take the match as deep as they could.
Bowling first, after winning the toss, West Indies started off well as they left India tumbling at 106/4 with Roston Chase picking the three key wickets in Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Suryakumar Yadav. A crucial 76-runs partnership between Rishabh Pant (52*) and Venkatesh Iyer (33) helped the hosts post a total of 186 runs on the board.
Chasing the target, West Indies found themselves struggling at 59/2 at 8.3 overs. However, after that Nicholas Pooran (62) and Rovman Powell (68*) took charge and registered 100 runs partnership to put the hosts under immense pressure.
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Even though the visitors lost Nicholas Pooran in the 19th over, Rovman Powell kept them in the game by smashing Harshal Patel for two sixes in the last over. But in the end, they fell short of the target by just 8 runs as the Rohit Sharma-led side clinched the three-match series 2-0, with one match to go.
Speaking at the post-match presentation, Kieron Pollard lauded Rovman Powell for his heroics. He remarked that the right-hander’s partnership with Nicholas Pooran almost won them the game.
“He (Powell) was phenomenal today. His partnership with Pooran almost got us over the line. We did well to take it as deep as we can. We can look at different ways as to how we could have gotten those 8 runs. At the end of it, we can look at so many ways,” Kieron Pollard said.
Kieron Pollard also lauded Roston Chase for his spell with the ball. He added that they rectified their mistakes from the last games.
“He (Chase) has bowled well. He came in and showed us something. Again he delivered for us. We can’t just call batters out. Was a very good game. We sort of rectified our mistakes from the previous games,” he said.
The dead rubber third T20I between India and West Indies will take place on Sunday (20th February) at the same venue.
(ANI inputs)
