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India vs West Indies: Heartbreak
“Four matches supplied the fireworks; rain stole the finale.”
Bengaluru had waited two long years for international cricket, and the sky could not spare it two hours. The fifth and final T20I between India and the West Indies (a decider locked at 2-2 after four wildly entertaining games) was called off at 10:16 pm on Saturday after relentless rain first delayed the toss, then reduced the game to nine overs a side, and finally returned at 10:05 pm to finish the job. India had scrambled to 118 for 5 in 7.4 overs; the West Indies would have needed 84 from five. There was nothing left to win. No result. Trophy shared. A series that ran on pure adrenaline for four straight nights ended on a shrug.
Photo Courtesy of India-National-Cricket Team vs West Indies Cricket Team
What four nights they were.
In Lucknow, captain Shreyas Iyer answered West Indies’ 171 with his maiden T20I hundred, 102 not out off 43 balls, an unbroken 137-run stand with Ishan Kishan carrying India past 172 with 32 deliveries to spare. Ranchi raised the stakes: India’s 249 for 5, built on Sanju Samson’s 82 off 41, was hunted down by Shai Hope’s 102 not out and Sherfane Rutherford’s 84, the West Indies finishing with nine balls in hand.
Photo Courtesy of West Indian cricket
Indore brought the theatre. Abhishek Sharma’s fifty came off 18 balls; India’s 223 was above par on a low-bouncing pitch, and still the West Indies kept swinging, Shamar Springer smashing four sixes in a wild, wonderful final over, though his side finished 14 short. In Hyderabad, Hope simply did it again (102 not out off 50 in 247 for 3) and Keemo Paul’s 5 for 41 helped close out a 24-run win that set up the decider.
The numbers behind the noise: 1,746 runs across the four completed games, 261 of them Hope’s at an average of 130.5, and 57.5 percent of the runs scored by West Indies batters from the bats of Hope and Rutherford, struck at nearly two runs a ball. The winning captain scored a hundred in six of the tour’s seven completed matches. This was also the second time in five years a Bengaluru decider was washed away, India and South Africa having shared a trophy here in June 2022.
Then came Saturday night, and the one opponent Hope could not master. He won the toss, chose to chase, and never faced a single ball. Cricket owed this series a proper verdict; it got weather instead. Four matches supplied the fireworks; rain stole the finale.