Visakhapatnam, The second ODI between India and the West Indies saw 667 runs being scored between the two sides in what was an exhibition of batsmanship.
K.L. Rahul and Rohit Sharma slammed centuries for India in a 227-run opening stand while Rishabh Pant and Shreyas Iyer put up a fiery stand of 73 off just 25 balls.
India scored 387/5 and while the West Indies fell 107 runs short of the target, they too had a good opening stand between Evin Lewis and Shai Hope. Later, Hope held up one end as Nicholas Pooran launched an assault on the Indian bowlers to briefly tip the scales in the visitors’ favour.
However, the match also saw a first-ever instance of captains of both sides being dismissed for golden ducks. India captain Virat Kohli, who is among the highest run scorers in ODIs in 2019, was dismissed for a rare first ball duck when he replaced centurion Rahul. He fell to his West Indies counterpart Kieron Pollard, who bowled only two overs in the Indian innings.
Later, Pollard himself fell for a first ball duck, edging Mohammed Shami to Pant behind the stumps. This is the first time in an ODI that captains of both sides were dismissed for a first ball duck.
Pollard was Shami’s second wicket after the latter had removed the dangerous Pooran in the previous delivery to swing the match back in India’s favour.
While he could not complete his hat-trick, Kuldeep Yadav did so a few overs later, dismissing Hope, Jason Holder and Alzarri Joseph off consecutive deliveries. Yadav thus became the first Indian bowler to take two hat-tricks at the international level.
