India vs Windies | Takeaways: Khaleel Ahmed to Kohli’s rescue and Rohit-Kohli fluidity

India vs Windies | Takeaways: Khaleel Ahmed to Kohli’s rescue and Rohit-Kohli fluidity

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Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma blew the Windies to smithereens to orchestrate one of the finest victories possible and helped India go 1-0 up in the series. While the game was completely lopsided, Kohli was saved by Khaleel Ahmed in the second powerplay, but his and Rohit’s fluidity played a big role.

Khaleel saved Kohli’s day

As Mohammed Shami returned to the limited-overs set-up almost after a year, the rustiness showed. He bowled some superb balls, angling away from Kieron Powell, but when he bowled to right-handers, he failed to restrict them. As a result, Windies raced away to 59/1 in the first powerplay overs. Hence, Virat Kohli immediately brought in a bowling change and went to Khaleel Ahmed and Yuzvendra Chahal after that to bowl in tandem.

The five fielders inside the circle were stationed close enough to stop the easy singles and it was a proper attempt to build pressure and break Windies' momentum. But the visitors did not try even one risky shot till the last ball of Ahmed's fourth over. With Powell going from strength to strength and Shai Hope batting with a lot of elegance, it seemed like Windies will be able to put up a good total. However, the trap was not avoided yet and that was the moment tragedy struck for Windies as Powell fell to Ahmed on the penultimate ball of the 15th over. 

The importance of the wicket was not just the partnership-breaking rather the timing of it. Shami was struggling to take the ball in and there were no signs of reverse on the wicket. Umesh might have struggled at that moment and India needed either of Ahmed or Chahal to strike. If he had not fallen then, Kohli would have been hard-pressed with his bowling options and might have rued the decision to drop Kuldeep Yadav. But, Powell’s departure allowed him to bowl the spinning duo of Yuzvendra Chahal and Ravindra Jadeja instead of reverting back to the pacers again.

Chahal’s line of attack strangulate Windies

Chahal is very unassuming of a bowler and just gets the job done without even seeming to take the centre stage. While he has been under the shadows of Kuldeep Yadav for long, today, he was in the team ahead of his partner-in-crime and had to prove a point given India were one bowler short. He was introduced in the 11th over and didn’t bowl a single googly in the first three overs. However, there was a remarkable consistency of both line, length and speed in those three overs and in between, Marlon Samuels was rapped on the pads to be dismissed for a duck on his 200th ODI. And when the leggie unleashed his googlies in his fourth over, by then, Windies had somehow been strangulated.

This might not seem like an exceptional plan in terms of the line of attack, but Chahal has the knack of bowling his stock ball faster than the googlies. While others have perhaps chosen to attempt to deceive batsmen in the flight or tempt them into a big shot before beating them off the pitch, Chahal instead opts to deceive them with a slightly quicker pace and target their stumps. Flight automatically came into the effect. Windies had learnt that later that scoring runs against Chahal would be difficult as it came with a price and that’s why they took the chances against the pacers. With Khaleel and Shami bowling at random lengths without any plan, their job became much easier. But Chahal's overs meant India didn't have to chase a 360 today. 

How Indians took the clue from Hetmeyer innings

As we saw in the Test series, Hetmeyer struggled against spinners and averaged a paltry 10.5 in the entire series. However, he turned that around in the ODI series and played an innings that would make any West Indian batsmen of the folklore proud. In an innings of 106 runs off 78 balls, he hit six sixes and as many fours. With the Indian pacers struggling to find any locus to their bowling and pitching it at random lengths, he knew that they were not going to take the ball away from him consistently. He was good with his pull and sweep and as a testament to his ability, he hit 75 of his 106 runs on the leg side. His control of the shots to negate the Jadeja arm balls and Chahal’s sliders were the most impressive thing as he made sure that the ball had enough power to cross the boundary ropes. He hardly miscued one. 

Calling it a template for Virat Kohli would be wrong, but it seemed like he had gotten a small clue off it. Despite the early sunset in the North East part of the country, dew doesn’t seem to play a part at least until 8. But, Kohli knew that the early start in the game meant it would be too late to wait for spinners suffering dew’s wrath and the batsmen opening their arms. Sure enough, he had the power to clear the boundary even without any help from the conditions. 

Once Devendra Bishoo and Ashley Nurse came into effect, Rohit took the role to play the anchor’s role and Kohli played the aggressor to good effect. When Nurse was bowling wide of the sticks, Kohli had targeted the mid-on and sweeper cover area - after understanding Jason Holder was not going to place a fielder there. When pacers came to bowl the middle-overs, the duo interchanged the role and got into the Hetmeyer's mindset. The pulls and flicks came in plenty until Kohli got out to a Devendra Bishoo delivery, against the run of play. 

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