Captain Virender Sehwag expects a lot better from his team the next time around after India limped to a one-wicket win over the West Indies in Tuesday’s first ODI in Cuttack. Having bowled out the Windies for a mere 211 on the back of two wickets apiece from Umesh Yadav and Varun Aaron, the home side later needed their fast bowlers to perform with the bat after slipping to 59 for five and then 201 for nine in reply. The tail-enders should never have been required, but a slew of tame wickets brought on by some weak shot selection and disciplined bowling had the hosts in danger of slumping to a humiliating defeat in the series opener of the five-match affair.
Yadav and Aaron hung on for six not out each across a 10th-wicket stand to the tune of 12 runs for victory in the penultimate over of the match. Earlier, Rohit Sharma had held a frail middle order together with a steady knock of 72, while Ravindra Jadeja dug in for a complementary vigil of 38. “In India you hardly see the team tottering at 59 for five. Hopefully we will come up with strong batting performances in the next games. “We have to learn from our mistakes,” said Sehwag, who is standing in for the rested MS Dhoni. “There were three soft dismissals of Parthiv Patel, Gautam Gambhir and Suresh Raina. There is no excuse for anybody not scoring runs. We have to back our batting. We have some exciting youngsters playing for last three four years.” With an 83-run stand for the sixth wicket between Sharma and Jadeja ended by the latter’s departure to medium-pacer Kieron Pollard, Vinay Kumar boasted his ability with the bat thanks to a dogged 18 at nine in the order. While anything but flashy, the aspirant all-rounder’s knock afforded numbers 10 and 11 a lot less work to do at the death of the pursuit. (skysports)
