Indians too good for the Windies

Ajinkya Rahane struck a brilliant century before the bowlers dished out a disciplined show as India drubbed a hapless West Indies by 105 runs in a lopsided contest in the second one-dayer here.

Put into bat, India rode on Rahane’s 103 off 104 balls and a blistering 66-ball 97 from captain Virat Kohli to post 310 for five after rain delayed the start of the match by two hours and reduced it to a 43-over-a-side affair.

The Indian bowlers then restricted West Indies to 205/6 to put the visitors 1-0 up in the five-match ODI series.

Surprisingly, the West Indians did not show any intent of chasing down the big target of 311 once they found the asking rate to be too high in the final 10 overs.

For India, the bowlers bowled an impeccable line and length with Kuldeep Yadav (3/50) being the most successful among them. The chinaman bowler did not get to bowl in his debut match in the first ODI which was abandoned due to rain.

Bhuvneshwar Kumar (2/9) rocked the West Indies run chase by grabbing the first two wickets by the third over. He removed Kieran Powell (0) in the third delivery (0) and then had Jason Mohammed (0) in his next over.

Wicketkeeper batsman Shai Hope (81) and Evin Lewis (21) had a 89-run stand for the third wicket to keep them in the hunt but once that partnership was snapped, the West Indians threw in the towel and they were happy to bat out their innings.

When Hope was out in the 26th over, the asking rate had gone above 12 an over and West Indies had already given up by then though they had six wickets in hand.

Captain Jason Holder (29) tried to get the big shots without any success as Kuldeep and Ravichandran Ashwin (1/47) gave him very few of them. When Holder was out in the 37th over, West Indies needed 136 runs from 11 overs.

Earlier, Rahane smashed his third ODI hundred to set up India’s biggest win against the West Indies in the Caribbeans in terms of runs.

Put into bat, India dashed West Indies hopes of any early breakthrough on a damp pitch as they negotiated the initial overs without losing any wicket.

Rahane and his opener partner Dhawan (63) laid a strong foundation with a 114-run stand and despite a bit of a wobble in the middle overs, India went past 300 with Kohli stamping his class with a 66-ball 87 later in the innings.

With the total, India became the side to have hit maximum number of 300-plus scores in an innings, as they reached the mark for the 96th time, overtaking Australia (95 times).

Rahane, who had hit 62 in the abandoned first match, had 10 fours and two sixes in his 104-ball knock before he was out in the 34th over. He also shared a 97-run stand for the second wicket with Kohli, who hit four boundaries and four sixes in his aggressive innings.

Senior batsman Yuvraj Singh, however, continued to struggle as he fell for just 14 from 10 balls while Hardik Pandya was the other Indian to fall cheaply for just four.