Put into bat, West Indies were uncharacteristically watchful in the beginning and finished powerplay at 45/0.
West Indies stepped in a newly-minted opening partnership of Shai Hope and Roston Chase. It was Chase’s first T20I as an opener and after a sedate start, he got going with two sweetly-timed boundaries against Arshdeep Singh and then scooped Jasprit Bumrah for a four.
Varun Chakaravarthy gave India the breakthrough as he knocked back Shai Hope’s (32) stumps in the ninth over. But it was Jasprit Bumrah’s double strike, to dismiss set batters Shimron Hetmyer (27) and Roston Chase (40), that swung the momentum India’s way.
Hetmyer was starting to flex his muscle, and had hit two sixes and a four, but ended up nicking a ball angling away from him to the wicketkeeper. Two balls later, Bumrah had Chase lob the ball to cover to a leaping Suryakumar Yadav. Hardik Pandya set them further back as he had Sherfane Rutherford caught behind.
After West Indies slipped from 102/2 to 119/4, Jason Holder and Rovman Powell took the attack to India. The latter also became the first West Indian to hit 150 sixes in T20Is with a flick over the square leg boundary.
Powell and Holder put on 76 runs for the fifth wicket, off just 35 balls, to take West Indies to a challenging score. While Powell finished with 34 off 19 balls, with the help of three fours and two sixes, Holder struck two fours and three sixes for a 22-ball 37.