A decider we wants and a decider we gets thanks to West Indies' resilience on display today. You can comb through what happened in Himanshu Agrawal's match report up here. So, let's continue to hope and pun along for the showdown in Trinidad in a couple of days. Sudarshanan will join Abhimanyu, who'll return on comms. I'm Ekanth, signing on behalf of Abhimanyu Bose, and our scorers, Chandan Duorah and Ranjith P.
Shai Hope, POTM and WI captain: I'm happy as long as my contributions lead to the win. When things are difficult, you gotta find ways to score quickly. So you gotta run hard, we got twos which helped. Very satisfied, the aim was to get back to the series. We gotta win one more and need to come back strongly. We gotta put in the effort and today we displayed the right attitude, need to replicate that in all disciplines. It was a complete performance. We want to tick the boxes and get the right result in the final game.
Hardik Pandya, India captain: We didn't bat the way we were supposed to. The wicket was better than it was in the first game. Everyone barring Shubman hit fielders and got out. Disappointing but many things to learn. The way our openers batted, especially Ishan, struck it well and is good for India. Shardul got us back in with his bowling. Hope and Carty batted well and got them through. Body's fine. I have to bowl more overs and get my workload up for the World Cup. I'm a turtle right now not the rabbit and hoping everything goes right as the World Cup comes on. To be honest, you want to be going 1-1 to the third game as it'll be more challenging and exciting.
JD: "two contrasting last 91 runs for each team"
5:01pm: A brilliant steady-the-ship effort from Hope and Carty not only rescued West Indies from 91 for 4 but took them to a win without further harm. It was set up by the spinners, Joseph and Seales earlier. Mayers was at his exuberant best early on in the chase. That was before Thakur lorded into the scene. He got the bouncer right to Mayers, capitalised on King being stuck on the back foot and had him lbw, and then did Athanaze in with another bouncer. When Hetmyer, who was all at sea against spin, was dismissed by Kuldeep, India seemed to have gotten back into ascendancy. But Carty and Hope toughed it out against the pacy spin of Jadeja and Axar and the loopier variety from Kuldeep. They ran diligently and rotated strike to whittle the target. Hope got past fifty with the end in sight. The duo got through Thakur and Hardik's last crack and Carty narrowly missed out on fifty but saw West Indies through to their first win against India in over three years.
Four needed to win, six needed for Carty's fifty
Thanks, Abhimanyu
END OF OVER:36 | 10 Runs | WI: 173/4 (9 runs required from 14 overs, RR: 4.80, RRR: 0.64)
- Keacy Carty40 (62b)
- Shai Hope62 (79b)
- Shardul Thakur8-0-42-3
- Hardik Pandya6-0-29-0
Like Hope and Carty (most probably) for West Indies, here comes Ekanth to finish the game off from our side!
Peter : "Wouldn't call India WC favourites. Would probably go with with England or Australia." I would tend to agree with you.
"Tryna wrap my head around on how did this WI team manage to lose WC qualifiers and beat one of the WC favorites!" That's sports for you, Mubeen!
END OF OVER:35 | 4 Runs | WI: 163/4 (19 runs required from 15 overs, RR: 4.65, RRR: 1.26)
- Keacy Carty37 (59b)
- Shai Hope55 (76b)
- Hardik Pandya6-0-29-0
- Shardul Thakur7-0-32-3
Faisal: "@Abhimanyu! You are sweet enough already. So no more sugar for you :) " Ultimate treachery, this!
END OF OVER:34 | 7 Runs | WI: 159/4 (23 runs required from 16 overs, RR: 4.67, RRR: 1.43)
- Keacy Carty35 (56b)
- Shai Hope53 (73b)
- Shardul Thakur7-0-32-3
- Hardik Pandya5-0-25-0
Abhijeet: "Yashashvi Jaiswal and Samson should have played this game instead of Rohil and Kohli.Bringing Axar and having him bat at 4 was a ridiculous decision.Dravid's selections lacks vision for the future.Last year Avesh Khan play a lot of games and now has vanished" Yashasvi not in the squad. Samson is playing!
Shardul
END OF OVER:33 | 4 Runs | WI: 152/4 (30 runs required from 17 overs, RR: 4.60, RRR: 1.76)
- Keacy Carty29 (51b)
- Shai Hope52 (72b)
- Hardik Pandya5-0-25-0
- Shardul Thakur6-0-25-3