World T20: Rohit Sharma proves again that he is the King of Eden Gardens: If it is Eden Gardens, then it is Rohit Sharma, who ‘calls the shots’, atleast in the limited over versions, be it ODI or T20I.
It was on this ground that he registered his highest ODI score of 264 runs off 173 deliveries against Sri Lanka, which eventually happens to be a word record.
The warm-up game for India and West Indies was played in the very same ground.
Batting first, India got off to a reasonably good start with Rohit and Shikhar (21). However, at the score of 32 runs, Shikhar fell to the left-arm turner of Suleiman Benn after scoring 21 runs off 17 deliveries with 3 fours and a six.
Losing Rahane for just 7 runs, Rohit was involved in a third-wicket partnership of 89 runs in 7.4 overs alongwith Yuvraj Singh, who scored 31 runs off just 20 deliveries with 3 fours and 1 six.
Yuvraj needed this kind of an innings to get his confidence back, since he would have a big role to play in the main tournament.
India finished their innings with 185 runs on the board for the loss of 6 wickets in 20 overs. Rohit Sharma remained unbeaten on a well made 98* runs off 57 deliveries aided by 9 fours and 7 sixes. Scoring at a rate of 171.92, he was at the crease for 87 minutes.
Jerome Taylor and Suleiman Benn picked up two wickets each, giving away 26 and 30 runs respectively in their spell of 4 overs each.
Chasing a target of 186 runs, West Indies did not clearly find their feet. The danger man, Chris Gayle was removed by the ‘high-on-form’ bowler, Jasprit Bumrah in the fourth delivery of the third over for just 20 runs.
None of the West Indies batsmen could settle down since the Indian bowlers kept picking up wickets at regular intervals.
It was really good to see Mohammad Shami, who was returning after a long off on account of injury, go through the motions. He was successful in picking up the wickets of Johnson Charles (18) and Ashley Nurse (8).
Spinners Harbhajan Singh and Pawan Negi also picked a couple of wickets each, while Hardik Pandya, who was a revelation in the recently concluded Asia Cup 2016, accounted for Andre Russell (19) and the skipper Darren Sammy (5).
Restricting the West Indies to 140 runs in 19.2 overs, India won the game by 45 runs.
