Hope’s 45-ball ton powers West Indies to record chase in Ranchi
India’s massive total of 249/5, built on Sanju Samson’s 82 and a ferocious finish from Shreyas Iyer and Tilak Varma, proved too little on a dewy highway in Ranchi as Shai Hope’s unbeaten 102 off 45 balls and Sherfane Rutherford’s 84 off 37 turned a chase that began at 5/2 into the second-highest successful run chase in men’s T20Is, and the highest ever by West Indies. The six-wicket win helped the visitors level the five-match series 1-1.
The 501 runs scored on the night made it the second-highest aggregate in men's T20Is, but the gap between the sides came down to the big hits. India struck more fours while West Indies hit 20 sixes to India's 13, nine of them coming off Hope's bat. The dew, as Hope had predicted at the toss, did the rest, and India's spinners bore the brunt of it, with Axar conceding 63 in 3.3 overs and Kuldeep 53 in four.
After Hope won the toss and sent India in, the evening seemed headed in one direction, with West Indies undoing their own efforts through some poor effort in the field. Samson, who came in under pressure after a lean run, was scratchy early, edging his first boundary past the keeper before he was dropped by Kamil Pooran at cover. He made WI pay almost immediately, launching the free hit from Akeal Hosein over long-on. Two overs later, he took Hosein for two sixes and two fours in a 22-run over, looking more like his fluent self. A second drop, at mid-off on 42, was followed by a 21-ball fifty, the joint-fastest by an Indian against West Indies. With Ishan Kishan cracking 43 off 22 on his home ground, the pair added 97 in 43 balls and India reached halfway at 127/1.
Roston Chase, who finished with 3 for 24, had already removed Abhishek Sharma, cramped for room and caught at mid-on, and the offspinner gave the batters nothing to swing at on a surface where almost everything else disappeared. He bowled Kishan with one that stayed low, and then had Shivam Dube dragging on. India managed only 42/3 between overs 11 and 15, a period that saw Samson upper-cut a Shamar Springer slower ball straight to a squarer-than-usual third man for 82.
Iyer, fresh from his maiden T20I hundred, and Tilak took 80 off the last five overs, and West Indies helped them along with wides, full tosses and a slow over-rate that left only four fielders on the rope for the final over. Tilak hit Springer's first three balls of the 20th over for sixes and finished unbeaten on 44 off 18 while Iyer made 40 off 18.
India could not have asked for a better start to the defence. In the first over, Mayank Yadav had Pooran top-edging a pull and then got Shimron Hetmyer first ball with a 144kph delivery that jagged back onto middle stump.
But from then on, the tide turned. Hope took Axar Patel for two sixes and a four in the fourth over, and Rovman Powell raced to 24 off 13 before Mayank sent his off stump cartwheeling. Rutherford walked in and hit three of his first four balls to the fence, and by the end of the Powerplay West Indies were 72/3, at par with the scoring rate.
What followed was the partnership that won the match. Hope, who had followed back-to-back ODI hundreds with a fifty in the first T20I, reached another in 24 balls. Rutherford, dropped on 39 by Mayank at short fine leg, cleared the large boundaries with ease. India even tried to hide the ball wide of off, and for a while it worked, but Axar's 12th over went for 23 and Naman Dhir's next for 18. Rutherford's fifty came in 24 balls, his third successive fifty-plus score in T20Is.
The pair of Hope and Rutherford added 120 off 54, and by the time Kuldeep found Rutherford's edge with a flat, wide one in the 15th over, the target had shrunk to 72 off 35.
That should have been India's opening. Instead Romario Shepherd, who had limped off while bowling in the first innings, walked out and shut the game down in a matter of overs. Kuldeep's 17th over went for 24, Hope clearing long-off twice before Shepherd went down on one knee to hit another over mid-wicket. Arshdeep Singh's 18th then went for 17, effectively shutting the door on India.
With 10 needed off 12, Hope finished it off in three balls from Axar, slog-sweeping a six to reach 96 and then lofting another over long-off to bring up his hundred and the win with the same stroke.
Brief scores: India 249/5 (Sanju Samson 82, Tilak Varma 44*, Ishan Kishan 43; Roston Chase 3-24, Shamar Springer 2-64) lost to West Indies 252/4 in 18.3 overs (Shai Hope 102*, Sherfane Rutherford 84, Romario Shepherd 34*; Mayank Yadav 3-36) by six wickets.
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