With West Indies requiring 60 runs off the last 90 balls, Brandon King and Akeal Hosein’s valiant 56-run run stand pushed India to the edge. Yuzvendra Chahal and Prasidh Krishna’s death-over bowling did bring some respite for the Men in Blue, but West Indies stood just 15 runs away from pulling off a record run chase of 309 on Friday in the opening match of the three-game ODI series in Port of Spain. But Mohammed Siraj held his nerves in the final over as India scripted a thrilling three-run win to take a 1-0 lead in the series. However, for Chahal, it was Sanju Samson’s stunning wicketkeeping effort that stood as the difference.
In the fifth ball of the final over, Romario Shepherd shuffled across to the leg side. Siraj followed him and delivered it down to the leg side but it went for a wide. With India needing eight runs of the last two balls, the wide delivery from Siraj, which looked set to go towards the boundary, would have reduced the equation to 3 off 1. However, Samson as well followed the delivery and made a superb diving effort to his left to stop the boundary.
Recalling the final over after the nail-biting win, Chahal hailed Samson’s incredible boundary-saving effort.
“We had full faith in Siraj and that we can defend five runs in the last over as he was bowling his yorkers very well… He missed hardly one or two yorkers earlier.
“But yes, a little bit of pressure is always there, given the way they were batting. Sanju (Samson) stopped a certain boundary off a wide, and that raised our confidence,” he said in the post-match presser.
Chahal himself had picked two of the total six wickets that fell in the second innings as India restricted West Indies to 305.
“There was not much pressure, because if you look at the team overall, almost everyone has played a lot of first-class matches, they have gained so much experience from the IPL, so you can’t say the bowling line-up was inexperienced,” Chahal added.