Arshdeep and Abhishek power India to 2-1 lead

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India 223 (Abhishek 69, Kishan 37, Chase 2-38) beat West Indies 209 (Hetmyer 43, Arshdeep 3-44) by 14 runs

Finally, at the sixth time of asking, a total has been defended successfully on West Indies' tour of India. Considering some of what has gone down in the last fortnight, India's 223 might not sound like a lot, but on an Indore pitch whose low bounce made big hitting difficult, Abhishek Sharma's 30-ball 69 ended up giving India an above-par total.

Take out his 14-runs-per-over innings, and the rest of the match, including extras, yielded around 10 an over for both the sides: India 154 in 15 overs, West Indies 209 in their 20. While India's drop was more dramatic - from 115 for 1 in 8.1 overs to 135 for 5 and then a failure to finish big - West Indies kept losing wickets regularly to India, who welcomed the absence of dew.

Arshdeep Singh went to death bowling with the new ball to finally get Shai Hope for a low score after which India were pinpoint with their tactics to constantly stay just out of reach of West Indies throughout the innings. Axar Patel came back from figures of 3.3-0-63-0 in Ranchi to stall West Indies in the middle overs, part-timers Naman Dhir and Nitish Kumar Reddy did their job too, and Arshdeep and Prince Yadav used yorkers with the dry ball to shut the game out well before the 20th over.

Full report to follow

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