India vs Windies, Second T20I: 3 reasons why Windies lost

The fabulous looking Bharat Ratna Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium played host to the second T20I between India and West indies today. It was the first international match to be played in Lucknow in 24 years, so naturally, the stadium was packed to the rafters.

Carlos Brathwaite won the toss and decided to chase, keeping the dew factor in mind. India got off to a solid start as the openers built a strong foundation for the middle order.

Rohit Sharma in particular was very impressive as he notched up his fourth T20I century and became the highest scorer for India in the format. West Indies on their part leaked too many runs at the fag end of the innings as India put up a very challenging score of 195 runs on the board.

In reply, the West Indies’ innings never really got going as they kept losing wickets at regular intervals. The Indian bowlers had a field day, with everyone barring Krunal Pandya picking up wickets. In the end, India won the one-sided encounter by a massive margin of 71 runs to clinch the three-match T20I series.

Here are the reasons for Windies' loss:

#1 Rohit Sharma’s masterclass

Rohit Sharma is easily one of the world's best batsmen in white ball cricket. And to the dismay of the Windies bowlers, he has carried his good form from the one day matches to the T20Is.

Today, Rohit put up a perfect example of how to pace your innings. Coming in to bat on a tricky surface, he had to weather some good fast bowling by the West Indies new ball bowlers at the start. But from the moment he broke the shackles with a six off the first ball of spin he faced, he looked unstoppable.

Rohit was particularly impressive in the second half of the innings, hitting fours and sixes at will. He hammered a massive 111 runs from just 61 balls and became the only batsman in world cricket to have four T20I centuries to his name.

Whoever bowled to Rohit, was smashed out of the park. Once set, he clobbered the Windies attack all over the park, in the process also becoming the second highest run getter in T20Is.

#2 Poor death bowling

The West Indies bowlers started on a good note today as well, bowling a tight line in the powerplay overs and not giving many easy balls for the Indian batsmen to hit. After the end of 10 overs, the score was 83/0.

However, the wheels came off in the second half of the innings as Rohit Sharma cut loose. As many as 112 runs were scored off the last 10 overs.

The newbie Khary Pierre was handed the ball in the 18th over and was hammered for a whopping 21 runs. Captain Carlos Brathwaite particularly had a bad day in the office too as he leaked 56 runs from his 4 overs. The last over went for a massive 20 runs, giving the Windies an improbable target of 196 runs to chase down.

The visitors need to find an adequate replacement for Andre Russell’s death overs as the current crop is too inexperienced to handle the pressure of international cricket.

#3 Stuttering start with the bat

Shai Hope

Chasing a stiff target of 196 runs on a surface where the ball wasn’t coming on to the bat, West Indies needed a strong start at the top. But their innings never really got going.

The in-form Shai Hope was cleaned up by Khaleel Ahmed in the second over of the innings. Next to go was Shimron Hetmyer, who holed out to long-on.

The experienced duo of Darren Bravo and Dinesh Ramdin tried to stitch together a partnership but a double wicket over from Kuldeep Yadav doused all hopes of a West Indies comeback.

First, Bravo’s innings was cut short by an excellent reflex catch from Rohit Sharma at first slip. Then, Nicolas Pooran was undone by a brilliant wrong-un from Kuldeep.

Wickets kept falling at regular intervals during the West Indies’ innings as their batsmen failed to adjust to a difficult surface. Their powerful T20 batting line up was expected to put up a good fight in the T20 series, but it has let down their fans badly.