Hope brings joy for West Indies
Pune: Jasprit Bumrah scalped four wickets (4/35), Virat Kohli completed a hat-trick of hundreds (107) but Shai Hope’s 95 and then Windies bowlers’ collective effort made sure that the night belonged to the visitors. Windies 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 Associ-ation 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.
MS Dhoni, dropped from India’s T20I squads for West Indies and Australia on Friday, set the ball rolling as he took an absolute stunner to dismiss Chandrapaul Hemraj off Bumrah. The pacer stuck yet again as Rohit Sharma took a diving catch in the slips to send Kieran Powell packing in the eighth over. Marlon Samuels’ failure with the bat continued, as the visitors were three down for 55. Shimron Hetmyer was India’s Achilles’ heel.