Impressive India's passage to ICC Champions Trophy 2013 Final

Match 6: India vs West Indies

Result: India won by 8 wickets

The dashing duo of Shikhar Dhawan and Ravindra Jadeja, with the twirlable Sindely mostache, came to the party again to push the original party animals – the West Indies – to the brink. After the early loss of danger man, Gayle, Johnson Charles intended to wallop every delivery out of the Oval. While Charles was on the prowl, a stat was beginning to hang like the sword of Damocles over the Indian bowling – Charles had a 100% conversion of fifties into 100′s. All that was changed by Jadeja, who also sparked off a middle order collapse. Darren Sammy, ever the gay cavalier, then staged an impressive riposte to take WI to a middling 233. India’s razor-sharp fielding also came to the fore in this duel. The awesome foursome of Kohli, Jadeja, Rohit and Raina nearly shaved 30 runs off West Indies’ final total, an invisible turning point in the clash.

A target of 234 was never really going to trouble the Indian batting department that backs itself to gun down any total. Whilst Dhawan continued to bat like a dream, sealing his second successive ODI ton, Dinesh Karthik (51*) and Rohit Sharma (52) played the supporting acts to perfection. The upshot was that India marched into the semis besides knocking arch-rivals Pakistan out of the tournament.