Ind vs WI 3rd ODI: Shai Hope's 95 keeps Windies alive with series-levelling win

Pune: Jasprit Bumrah scalped four wickets (4/35), Virat Kohli completed a hat-trick of hundreds (107) but Shai Hope’s 95 and then bowlers’ collective showings made sure that the night belonged to West Indies as they beat India by 43 runs to level the five-match series 1-1 here on Saturday.

Hope took off from where he had left in Vizag as his controlled 117-ball knock and Ashley Nurse’s late onslaught (40 off 22 balls) guided West Indies to 283/9 after India elected to field at the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium.

While Bhuvneshwar Kumar did not really enjoy a bright evening on his comeback, Bumrah provided the team what it had dearly missed in the first two ODIs – control, wickets and sting – from at least one of their pacers.

The Windies did not really enjoy a good start as MS Dhoni, dropped from India’s T20I squads for West Indies and Australia on Friday, set the ball rolling, taking an absolute stunner to dismiss Chandrapaul Hemraj off Bumrah.

The slingly paceman stuck yet again as Rohit Sharma took a diving catch in the slips to send Kieran Powell packing in the eighth over. Samuels failed with the bat yet again as the visitors were three down with not even sixty runs on the board.

Shimron Hetmyer was India’s Achilles’ heel in the first two ODIs and he looked set for an encore in Pune as he raced to 37 off 20 balls, hitting three sixes and two fours and stitching the second fifty-plus partnership with Hope in the series.

However, his ‘foot-on-the-line’ moment and Dhoni’s sharpness behind the stumps meant that Kuldeep Yadav had the West Indian for the fourth time on the ongoing tour.

Windies were 5 down for 121 as Jason Holder (32) joined Hope in the middle and the duo put up a 76-run stand before Bhuvneshwar dismissed the West Indian skipper. Bumrah then dashed Hope’s plans to bring up his second hundred in a row with a toe-crusher in the 44^th over.

The Windies were 8 down by then as India harboured hopes of restricting the visitors for below 250. However, Nurse’s quickfire innings, where he scored 21 from the penultimate over bowled by Bhuvneshwar, took West Indies to 283.

The Indian chase did not begin on a bright note as Jason Holder dismissed Rohit Sharma in the second over. Kohli and Dhawan then joined hands and added 79 runs before the southpaw, like in Vizag, was out LBW off Ashley Nurse.

While Kohli went on to register his third consecutive fifty-plus score in this series, Obed McCoy gave the Windies their third breakthrough as Ambati Rayudu dragged one back onto the stumps.

Rishabh Pant played some breathtaking shots in his short stay in the middle, but he and MS Dhoni departed in quick succession to offer Windies an opening in this game. Kohli, meanwhile, went about his hundred-making business – 38^th in ODIs, 4^th in a row in India, 3^rd in a row in this series, 6^th in ODIs in 2018 and 23^rd while chasing.

However, Samuels hit the final nail in the coffin as he disturbed the timber to dismiss Kohli in the 42^nd over to end India’s hope an unassailable lead and pave West Indies’ way to level the series.