India cruise to victory

The host nation got their Indian Oil Cup campaign back on track with a comfortable win over the West Indies in the second match at Dambulla.

The tone was set early, as Shivnarine Chanderpaul won the toss and elected to bat, but his team lost three wickets inside the first 15 overs and struggled to maintain an acceptable scoring rate. The rot began when a Pathan inswinger removed Runako Morton and Sylvester Joseph ran himself out, and then the Indian spinners took over, picking up the next five wickets and stifling the runs in the middle overs. More often than not, inexperience, negative play and poor shot selection cost the West Indian batsmen their wickets, rather than high quality bowling. It was only a dour 41 off 91 balls to Deonarine and some lusty lower order hitting from Tino Best which pushed the West Indies up to their eventual total of 178.

The modest target never seemed like it would be enough, and India’s consistent anchor Rahul Dravid made an unbeaten half-century and negotiated his side home with 14 overs to spare after some early stutters in the chase. The pitch did display some life for the West Indies quicks early on, and when the third wicket went down with only 82 on the board hope still remained, but in the end there simply weren’t enough runs on the board to challenge the strong Indian batting lineup.

The inexperienced West Indies side will be looking to hit back against Sri Lanka in the third match of the series on Tuesday.

West Indies 178 (47.4)
Narsingh Deonarine 41 (91), Xavier Marshall 26 (48)
Ashish Nehra 2/23 (9), Harbhajan Singh 2/24 (10)

India 4/180 (36)
Rahul Dravid 52* (65), Suresh Raina 35 (42)
Jermaine Lawson 2/58 (9), Tino Best 1/34 (6)

CricketWeb Player of the Match
Rahul Dravid – 52* (65), 1 catch