India beat the West Indies in a Twenty20 international match on Saturday by nine wickets. Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shubman Gill played a great starting combination, which helped India win. They tied the five-match series at 2-2.
West Indies gave India a goal of 179 to win, which seemed hard on a slow pitch, but the opening pair made quick work of it, scoring 165 runs before Gill was finally out for 77 runs in the 16th over.
The 21-year-old left-handed Jaiswal finished with a perfect score of 84, hitting 11 fours and 3 sixes to the joy of the crowd at the Broward County Stadium in South Florida, which was mostly made up of India fans.
On Sunday, the final game of the series will be played at the USA’s official international cricket venue. At this point, India is down 2-0 in the series, but they think they still have a chance to win.
West Indies got off to a rough start, but they got back on track and got to 178-8 thanks to Shimron Hetmyer’s lively 61.
West Indies openers Kyle Mayers (17) and Brandon King (18) were both out by Arshdeep Singh. Fans wearing India’s blue shirts, including some who had traveled from all over the United States, were loving it. Kuldeep Yadav took two wickets as West Indies struggled to 57-4.
But Shai Hope put the game back on track by scoring 45 runs in 29 balls before Yuzvendra Chahal hit him out to Axar Patel.
But it was Hetmyer who went up against India’s attack. He hit four sixes on his way to 61 runs off 39 balls, a mix of power hitting and smart waiting.
Odean Smith hit Arshdeep Singh for a six with the last ball, hitting him over extra cover. This helped the West Indies get a good score, but their bowling attack was soon broken up.
India’s captain, Hardik Pandya, was happy to see his young openers do well.
“That’s great. As we’ve seen, they definitely have the right skills. All they had to do was take some time between the wickets. As a hitting group, we need to take on more responsibility and help the bowlers going forward. I have always thought that bowlers win games. Both Yashasvi and Shubman did a great job. “That’s great to see,” he said.
India’s win was very convincing, so it seems likely that they will win the series, but Pandya told them not to get too comfortable.
“There is no favorite in T20 cricket. You’ve got to show up and play well. You have to take the other side seriously. They were up 2-0 because we didn’t play as well as they did. “We have to show up on Sunday and do the same thing we did today,” he said.