West Indies captain Shai Hope credited strong partnerships and Sherfane Rutherford’s explosive batting for his team’s six-wicket victory over India in the second T20I at the JSCA International Stadium Complex in Ranchi on Friday, as the visitors chased a daunting target of 250 runs.
Hope smashed a blistering 45-ball century, while Rutherford hammered 84 off just 37 deliveries to help the West Indies complete the second-highest successful run chase in men’s T20I cricket. The visitors reached 252/4 with two overs to spare.
Reflecting on the early setbacks that reduced the West Indies to 5/2, Hope admitted that the chase looked challenging. However, he said teams always believed they could reach big totals when playing in India.
“It was always going to be a tough chase. But when you chase here in India, you always give yourself a chance. You always think you’re in the game, regardless of what score is on the board. But five for two was always going to be challenging,” Hope said after winning the Player of the Match award.
Hope said his partnership with Rovman Powell helped the West Indies regain momentum before Rutherford’s counter-attacking knock gave the visitors the decisive push.
“When we got that partnership going, Rovman and I gave the innings some impetus. Then Sherfane came in and did what he did. He played really well with the bat and gave us the spark we needed to get over the line,” Hope said.
He also stressed the importance of building partnerships, saying batters sometimes needed to trust their partners rather than take unnecessary risks.
“I really believe we need to bat a lot better in partnerships. It’s something we tend to lack every now and again. But sometimes you just have to sit back and watch your partner play shots. In that situation, as long as we kept up with the required rate, I didn’t need to take unnecessary risks. I thought we were going really nicely, so it was about calculating the chase as best we could,” he said.
Hope also praised his SS bats and said he focused on backing himself and choosing the best scoring option whenever the ball entered his hitting zone.
“All those SS bats I have are pretty good. The ball seemed to travel quite a bit here. The boundaries were a little bigger, but you just have to back yourself. Once the ball is in your zone, you look for the best option to find the boundary, and it worked well today. As I said before, I needed some luck to go my way, and today was one of those days,” he added.
The West Indies captain attributed his recent run of form to thorough preparation and efforts to stay mentally fresh rather than any special comfort playing in India.
“When you’re scoring runs, you’re just happy. Maybe I could say I’m enjoying a good run of form right now, but I think the way I’m preparing and trying to stay mentally fresh and ready is giving me the best chance to perform. I just hope it continues for as long as possible,” he said.
Despite his remarkable century, Hope said he would not allow the success to affect his mindset.
Meanwhile, India captain Shreyas Iyer said the dew factor made it difficult to determine a par score after the West Indies chased down India’s imposing total of 249/5.
“Honestly speaking, you cannot put a number to it because when the dew factor comes in, it plays a massive role. Even 249 was chased with two overs to spare. So you cannot give a number or anticipate that this is the total we should aim for,” Iyer said after the match.
India head coach Gautam Gambhir urged his team to address its bowling shortcomings and called for a more competitive contest between bat and ball after the West Indies pulled off the record chase.
“You don’t shrug off any defeat. If you want to keep improving, you don’t want to put anything under the carpet. We are a world-champion team, so we want to keep improving,” Gambhir said at the post-match press conference.
He acknowledged the difficulty of bowling on flat pitches with dew but said India needed to find solutions, especially after the West Indies lost two wickets in the opening over and three during the powerplay.
“These are obviously tough conditions to bowl in. We know flat wickets with dew make it difficult, but we need to figure things out and find a way. Especially when the opposition had lost two wickets in the first over and then lost three wickets in the powerplay,” he said.
Gambhir also praised Hope and Rutherford for their performances, describing them as world-class batters in the T20 format.
“It was tough on us, but we’re going to keep improving,” he added.
The victory gave the West Indies a 1-0 lead in the series. The visitors staged a remarkable recovery after Mayank Yadav’s three-wicket burst initially put India in control of the chase.