With a bowling attack that is simply too good for West Indies, it turned out to be a no-contest with India registering their most comprehensive victory in this tournament. The two-time chapmpions inflicted a 125-run win to knock the Caribbean side out of the tournament.
India's bowling proved to be the difference. Jasprit Bumrah's quality is well and known and Mohammad Shami is bowling as well as he ever did in his ODI career. And then there are the two spinners who are difficult for most teams and for West Indies, a side notorious for struggling against good spinners, they are deadly. To make things worse, Hardik Pandya too produced some good overs.
The damage was done and the match won early in the West Indies innings with both Chris Gayle and Shai Hope dismissed cheaply. These two batsmen were most likely to mount a serious challenge to India's target, Hope with his class and Gayle with his destructive ability. With both out, the game was well out of West Indies' reach. The repeat of what happened against New Zealand wasn't possible for the West Indians because unlike the Kiwis, India have four wicket-taking bowlers including two brilliant spinners.
India's batting was far from convincing and West Indian bowlers deserve credit for keeping the Men in Blue restricted to 268. However, that was far more than what was probably needed against a very brittle batting line-up. With Hope, Hetmyer, Pooran, Brathwaite, there is no dearth of talent in the team but unless these batsmen start producing consistent performances, the Windies will remain a side devoid of success.
From India's point of view, they have reasserted their supremacy once again after a stutter against Afghanistan. There are still questions about KL Rahul and Vijay Shankar's place in the team. Since the latter had nothing to do with the ball today and failed with the bat, there is a great chance that he will make way for someone like Rishabh Pant or even Dinesh Karthik. If it is the former, then he might even be promoted to the opening position and Rahul brought back to four. But there is a little chink in the armour for opposition to exploit.
The Indian bowling is getting better and better. Superlatives have been exhausted in talking about Bumrah and he continues to deliver with unimaginable consistency. But there is a headache for India coming up for their next game. With Bhuvneshwar Kumar fit, will India drop Shami? It's a very tricky problem but one that all teams would kill to have. Needless to say, India are marching towards the trophy and it would be very hard for anyone to stop them.
