In what was a must-win game for them, Team India produced an impressive performance to register a comprehensive seven-wicket victory over West Indies in the third T20I at Providence Stadium in Guyana on Tuesday (August 8).

Chasing 160 to win, the Men in Blue lost both their openers – Yashasvi Jaiswal (1) and Shubman Gill (6) – cheaply. However, the duo of Suryakumar Yadav and Tilak Varma added 87 runs for the third wicket to put the visitors on the brink of victory.

After Surya got out on 83 off 44 balls, skipper Hardik Pandya joined Tilak in the middle and the pair forged an unbeaten 43-run stand to overhaul the target with 13 deliveries to spare.

When India needed two runs off 14 balls, Hardik smashed his Caribbean counterpart Rovman Powell for a huge six to seal the deal. While his six took the tourists over the line, it denied Tilak Varma a chance to hit second successive fifty in the ongoing T20I series.

Tilak remained unbeaten on 49 off 37 balls, leading to fans arguing that the Indian captain could've let the southpaw take strike to reach his fifty as so many balls were still left in the chase.

Speaking on his YouTube channel, former India opener Aakash Chopra also insisted that Hardik Pandya shouldn’t have hit a big shot as the Net Run Rate (NRR) was not at stake.

“Tilak Varma, outstanding. First Indian to get 30+ scores in his first three international innings. He scored a fifty in his previous games and was close to another this time too, in fact, it should've been a fifty. His temperament is good, his range is good, he was aggressive at first and then was happy to play second-fiddle to Suryakumar,” Chopra said.

“Hardik comes to bat, tells him it's important to remain not out, don't get carried away. Then Hardik hits aggressive hits... you don't need NRR, it would've made no difference. He told Tilak to go easy, but tried to hit big shots himself. You needed 2 runs off 13 balls, and he smashed a six. I'm sure they want to build a culture that doesn't care about individual milestones. But even a not out doesn't really matter here, even if you were out there, you still had 12 balls there to score 2 runs. Tilak was denied a chance to score a fifty. That's just my opinion, though,” he added.

With the victory, the Hardik Pandya-led Indian side kept the five-match T20I series alive. The penultimate T20I will be played in Florida on Saturday (August 12).