India looked like a distraught side after the loss against West Indies last night, having been ripped apart by a scintillating display of power hitting by Evin Lewis.
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The intensity was somehow missing, as India didn’t quite seem focussed and motivated enough.
Being put into bat, Virat Kohli and Shikhar Dhawan got India off to a wonderful start, striking the ball beautifully and stamping their authority over the inexperienced Windies bowling line up. But catastrophe struck when Kohli and Shikhar were dismissed in the space of two balls, leaving India with two new players at the crease.
Dinesh Karthik took the attack to the opposition but Pant, playing his first T20 International, couldn’t get the ball off the square.
India managed to put up just 190 on the board, when they initially looked set to get at least 220.
190 was still a good score, especially with the form this bowling unit was in. But Evin Lewis has had other plans. While all the talk was about Chris Gayle before the game, Lewis was the one who toyed with the Indian bowling unit, hitting them to all corners and helping his country romp to brilliant 9 wicket win.
Virat Kohli was very critical of India’s performance across all departments
“Even in the first innings, we could have added 25-30 extra. We were on course for 230. And in the field as well, we dropped a few chances and if you don’t grab them you don’t deserve to win,” Virat said.
“If you give a good start up the order, one batsman has to bat through. I think Dinesh was good, but we needed someone to get 80-90 which a team needs in T20 cricket, I think.
“Then we didn’t start well with the ball and didn’t field well either. All these games are good feeders of how guys react to situations.” he added.
Kohli acknowledged the fact that West Indies have a very strong and settled T20 unit and that the Indian T20 side is still in transition.
“West Indies have a good T20 team, they have carried on with the same team for a couple of years. And in experimental stage, we’d have up and downs. But we need to keep going. One game in the ODIs we lost, we won three convincingly,” Kohli said.
“T20s is anyone’s game, and one game doesn’t make a series according to me. Overall, we enjoyed the tour.” he added.
