Kedar Jadhav triggered a late run explosion in partnership with Mahendra Singh Dhoni as India reached 251 for four batting first against the West Indies at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium in Antigua on Friday.
Dhoni top-scored in the third fixture of a five-match One-Day International series with an unbeaten 78 off 79 balls on a sluggish pitch.
However, the real impetus came from Jadhav, who blazed 40 off 26 balls in an unbroken fifth-wicket stand of 81 runs off just 46 deliveries.
Ajinkya Rahane had earlier held the innings together after the loss of early wickets, the opening batsman extending his excellent run of form in the series with 72 off 112 balls, his third consecutive score over 50 in the Caribbean.
Comprehensively beaten by 105 runs in the second match in Trinidad five days earlier following a rain-ruined no-result to start the series, West Indies took early advantage of the pitch conditions which made free scoring difficult.
Miguel Cummins removed Shikhar Dhawan in just the third over of the match to a catch at third man while Jason Holder justified his decision to field first on winning the toss when he claimed the prized scalp of Virat Kohli, his Indian counterpart being brilliantly caught by Kyle Hope at gully.
Hope, elder brother of wicketkeeper-batsman Shai Hope, is one of two ODI debutants in the West Indies team, the other being fast bowler Kesrick Williams.
From 34 for two in the tenth over, Rahane found a reliable partner in Yuvraj Singh, the pair putting on 66 for the third wicket before Devendra Bishoo trapped Yuvraj lbw for 39, the original ‘not out’ decision on the field being overturned on review.
Dhoni then joined Rahane in another important stand of 70, although both found the spinners especially hard to get away on the turgid surface.
Bishoo and off-spinner Ashley Nurse completed a combined 20 overs at a cost of just 72 runs.
However, the acceleration finally came with the arrival of Jadhav at the crease in the 43rd over when Rahane became Cummins’ second wicket of the innings.
Both batsmen took on the faster bowlers with gusto and rattled a West Indies team that looked on course to keep the Indians well below the 250-run mark.
A measure of the difficulty in scoring was the failure of any of the batsmen except the adventurous Jadhav to score at better than a run-a-ball.
Seeking victory to take an unbeatable 2-0 lead in the series, India are fielding the same XI for the third consecutive match.
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