The first T20I of the five-match series between West Indies and India got underway at the Brian Lara Stadium, Tarouba, Trinidad, the first international T20 match at this venue on July 29, 2022.
West Indies captain Nicholas Pooran won the toss and chose to bowl first and revealed that Alzarri Joseph was making his T20I debut and Shimron Hetmyer was back in the team. For India, Rohit Sharma said that they were playing three spinners in R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, and Ravi Bishnoi.
As for a surprise, Suryakumar Yadav opened the innings with Rohit Sharma and looked decent for his knock of 24 runs with 3 fours and 1 six. Shreyas Iyer fell for a duck, while Rishabh Pant made 14 runs and Hardik Pandya fell for 1 run.
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Rohit Sharma was the big wicket falling for 64 runs in 44 balls with 7 fours and 2 sixes, getting caught by Hetmyer off Holder. Dinesh Karthik and R Ashwin got together and added some quick runs, with Ashwin even hitting a six off Holder.
However, Obed McCoy had a chance to get rid of R Ashwin on the 3rd ball of the 18th over. Karthik hit the ball straight towards long off and called Ashwin for the second run, which he was struggling with. The fielder threw the ball straight into the hands of McCoy, who collected it cleanly.
Meanwhile, Ashwin had to dive to make his ground, but replays revealed that McCoy had the ball well in advance and for some reason didn’t dislodge the bails when Ashwin was not even in the frame and was way out.
Here is the video:
Notably, both McCoy and Ashwin played for the Rajasthan Royals in the recent IPL 2022 where they played in the final as well. The above incident led to RR putting out a tweet using a Salman Khan song.
They put a photo of Salman Khan with text reading: “Tu hi toh mera dost hai.”
In the end, Dinesh Karthik’s 41* in 19 balls with 4 fours and 2 sixes and Ashwin’s 13* and their 52* partnership in 25 balls helped India to a final total of 190/6. For the home side, debutant Alzarri Joseph took 2/46.
