West Indies batting lineup struggled yet again to figure out India’s spinners as Harmanpreet Kaur and Co clinched the five-match T20I series with two games to spare after a seven-wicket win in Guyana on Thursday.
The hosts were restricted to their lowest T20I total (59/9 in 20 overs) before Jemimah Rodrigues played a mature innings to take India home with 20 balls to spare.
It was once again a clinical bowling effort led by the spinners that saw the visitors continue their winning run with the tour moving to Guyana for the final three matches.
Opting to bat first in the must-win match, West Indies struggled from the word go. Anuja Patil, playing this match in place of Shikha Pandey, and Radha Yadav shared the six overs of powerplay between them as India read the conditions perfectly at the Providence Stadium. There was grip and turn on offer for the spinners from the outset, and as has been the case through this tour, the hosts had no answers to the spin-heavy Indian attack. Having ended the powerplay at 12/2, West Indies innings never really got going.
Radha Yadav was the pick of the bowlers for India, finishing with sensational figures of 4-2-6-2. Poonam Yadav (1/8) and Deepti Sharma (2/12) were at their miserly best while Patil also chipped in with a wicket. The only seamer in the side, Pooja Vastrakar, picked up one wicket in the two overs she bowled as well.
There was absolutely no resistance shown by the West Indies batters, and it was a procession through the innings. They managed to avoid being all out after Shafali Verma put down a catch off the last ball of the innings.
Chasing down the target was not exactly a walk in the park for India either. After successive century opening partnerships, Shafali Verma (0) and Smriti Mandhana (3) were both dismissed in the powerplay as the visitors found the going tough as well against Hayley Matthews and Anisa Mohammed’s tight bowling.
Rodrigues, however, showed a calm head on her young shoulders. She was offered a reprieve early on in her innings as Grimmond put down a simple return catch but she buckled down from there on and scored two-thirds of India’s total (40*) to take her side home. Harmanpreet Kaur would fall for a 19-ball 7 later on but the hosts simply did not have enough on the board to make India sweat.
India have now registered back-to-back series wins in the shortest format and will look to make it a clean sweep with two more matches to be played at the same venue.
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