WINDIESCRICKET.COM
West Indies was led by a sensational half-century from Chris Gayle, who top scored with 72 off 41 balls in his 301stODI. This included eight fours and five sixes and was the 54th half-century of his career, to go along with 25 centuries. On Sunday, in his 300th match, he surpassed Brian Lara as the leading ODI batsman for West Indies and now has 10,480 runs.
Gayle shared an opening partnership of 115 off just 10.5 overs with Evin Lewis, who made 43 off 29 balls – five fours and three sixes. Lewis ended the three-match series as the West Indies leading batsman with 148 runs (average 74, strike rate 102).
The stand between Gayle and Lewis piloted West Indies to 240-7 off 35 overs, this after the match was delayed by three hours due to rain. Late in the innings Nicholas Pooran smashed three sixes in 30 off 16 balls, which followed up scores of 42, 58 and 118 in recent ODIs.
India were asked to make 255 for victory off 35 overs, and they reached the target with four wickets down. They were again led by captain Virat Kohli, who made 114 not out off 99 balls, with 14 boundaries. It was his second century in the two knocks this series and he won the awards for Man-of-the-Match and Player-of-the-Series.
Left-arm spinner Fabian Allen was the leading bowler for West Indies with 2-40 – both wickets came in the 13th over as the home side gained control – before Kohli hit his 43rd century in this format to seal the victory and a 2-0 series win for the visitors.
“It didn’t work out for us today, we batted well up top and credit to Chris and Evin for the start they gave us. They were positive from the start and showed what they are capable of. We thought we had a really good score,” Holder said.
“I was really pleased how we batted the situation after the rain break. Before, on previous occasions, we might have gone helter-skelter and lost wickets. Today, we handled the situation really well and we put ourselves in a position to win. It was just unfortunate we could not get the win for our fans.”
The two teams will now travel to Antigua for the start of the two-match Test Series.
Summarized scores: WEST INDIES 240-7 off 35 overs (Chris Gayle 71, Evin Lewis 43, Nicholas Pooran 30, Shimron Hetmyer 25, Shai Hope 24; Khaleel Ahmed 3-68) INDIA 256-4 off 32.3 overs (Virat Kohli 114 not out, Shreyas Iyer 65, Shikhar Dhawan 36; Fabian Allen 2-40)