India vs West Indies 2013: Ravi Rampaul and Darren Sammy help West Indies level series at Vizag

Ravi Rampaul – Superb 4 wicket haul

West Indies finally brought back some life into the ODI series as they chased down a target of 289 with 2 wickets in hand. India scored 288/7 in their quota of 50 overs thanks to a superb 99 from Virat Kohli and a fire brand unbeaten 51 from MS Dhoni. West Indies rode half centuries from Darren Bravo, Kieron Powell, Lendl Simmons and Darren Sammy to chase down the steep target and level the series at Vishakhapatnam. However, it was Ravi Rampaul’s 4 wicket haul that pegged the Indians back and didn’t let them go past the 300 run mark.

The West Indian chase, once again, got off to rocky start. The opener Johnston Charles hit one straight back to Bhuvneshwar Kumar and then Marlon Samuels knicked one to MS Dhoni off Mohit Sharma. But the pair of Kieron Powell and Darren Bravo got West Indies into the game and kept them in the hunt with a partnership of 100 runs.

But just when West Indies seemed going steady, R. Ashwin broke through with the wicket of Darren Bravo. The left hander from Trinidad reached his 50 after being dropped thrice in a space of two overs. He played some delightful drives but finally his luck ran out when he misjudged the length and edged one from Ashwin to MS Dhoni.

And after the umpires changed the ball, Ashwin wove his magic again. Kieron Powell (59), who played a spotless innings, was completely bamboozled by an Ashwin off spinner that turned, bounced and left Powell way short of his crease.

Dwayne Bravo was the next to go after adding 38 runs with Lendl Simmons. Bravo played well for his 18 before a silly shot saw him hold out at deep square leg off Bhuvneshwar Kumar. But Lendl Simmons (62) kept his head and joined hands with Darren Sammy, added 82 runs and set the chase back on track.

The West Indian lower order lost quick wickets to make heavy weather of the chase but Sammy remained unbeaten on 62 off 44 deliveries to guide them over the line.

For India, all the bowlers struggled with the heavy dew on the field. Ashwin was the pick of the bowlers with an economical spell of 2/37. Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Md. Shami picked up 2 wickets each while Mohit Sharma and Jadeja picked up one.

Jadeja however, entered the record books for picking up 50 ODI wickets in a single calendar year.

Virat Kohli scored a brilliant 99

Earlier, Dwayne Bravo won the toss and elected to field on a track that had something in it for his seamers. Kieron Powell made it into the side for an injured Chris Gayle and Veeraswamy Permaul was inducted instead of Narsingh Deonarine.

The seamers Ravi Rampaul and Jason Holder, finally got their bearing right and kept the Indian openers on a tight leash. However, it was Ravi Rampaul who drew first blood when the in-form Rohit Sharma edged one to the slips. Rohit Sharma (12) tried to cut one that was a little to close to his body and Darren Sammy pouched it without much fuss at second slip.

Shikhar Dhawan and Virat Kohli joined hands and Dhawan became the third Indian to cross 1000 ODI runs this year. Dhawan, who hasn’t had the best of series till now, looked fluent and added 48 for the second wicket with Virat Kohli before falling to Permaul for 35. It was an important breakthrough for West Indies because Dhawan looked very comfortable in the middle and the drives through the offside were flowing from his blade.

Kohli was joined by Yuvraj Singh with India 65/2. Kohli looked in prime touch, as usual, and was scoring at a fair clip. He kept on rotating the strike and hit the odd boundaries to keep the scoreboard moving.

However, it was Yuvraj Singh who looked completely out of place against the spin of Sunil Narine and Permaul. The Indian left hander has been awfully out of touch since the Australian series and today too, struggled to put bat to ball against the Windies spinners. He scraped for a while before hitting a towering six off Narine and just when he looked like changing gears, he hit a rank half tracker from Sammy straight down the throat of Marlon Samules.

Suresh Raina, another left-hander in need of runs, joined Kohli and immediately got busy picking up the singles and handing the strike back to Kohli. Kohli flayed every bad ball to the boundary and went past Rohit Sharma to become the highest scorer in ODIs for the 2013 calendar year.

Raina and Kohli added 65 runs in just 9 overs and just when India looked all set to up the ante, Raina played a bad shot to gift his wicket to the opposition. His 23 came off just 21 deliveries and had he not tried to hoick Rampaul over mid wicket, he could have had a bigger impact in the powerplay.

The wicket of Raina brought West Indies right back in the game and Rampaul and Holder tightened their grip by some economical bowling during the batting powerplay. They were further aided by the wicket of Virat Kohli who fell agonisingly short of his hundred when he was caught brilliantly by Holder at fine leg off Ravi Rampaul.

Kohli fell for 99 but his knock was yet another masterclass in how to go about constructing an ODI innings. He initially rotated the strike, got into his groove and then opened up to hit 9 boundaries in his innings. It was a different kind of an innings from Kohli because he was not allowed to explode and had to drop anchor as India kept losing at the other end.

However, India did explode in the last 5 overs. After losing Kohli, India lost Ravindra Jadeja too. Ravi Rampaul bowled fantastic lines and kept the Indian run rate in check till the 45th over. Then MS Dhoni gave the charge. The Indian captain got into his gear and carted the West Indies bowling to all parts of the ground during the last 5 overs where India plundered 62 runs.

He slammed his 50th ODI 50 and hit 4 sixes and 3 fours to propel India to 288/7. MS Dhoni was ably supported by R. Ashwin who played a cameo of 19 from just 10 deliveries and added 47 runs in just 3 overs.

For West Indies, Ravi Rampaul was the pick of the bowlers with 4 wickets. Holder also picked up a wicket and Sunil Narine bowled a very tight spell where he conceded just 39 runs off his 10 overs.

The win here for the West Indies sets up the last game at Kanpur for a perfect finale for the series. However, it would be interesting to see how the teams go about an ODI that won’t be played under the lights.