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India 209 for 4 (Kohli 94*, Rahul 62, Pierre 2-44) beat West Indies 207 for 5 (Hetmyer 56, Lewis 40, Chahal 2-36) by six wickets
Hyderabad: India beat West Indies by six wickets in the first T20 International to take a 1-0 lead in the three-match series here on Friday.
Put into bat, the West Indies scored 207 for 5 but India rode on superb innings from Virat Kohli (94 not out) and KL Rahul (62) to overhaul the target, scoring 209 for four in 18.4 overs.
Kohli scored his 23rd half-century.
Rahul was caught by Khairi Pierre at the hands of Pollard. Rahul shared a 100-run partnership for the second wicket with Kohli. He completed 1000 runs in T20. He is the seventh Indian to achieve this feat. Rahul also scored his seventh half-century of career.
Team India started off chasing a huge target and the start was not good and they lost the wicket of Rohit Sharma in the beginning.
India suffered their first loss in the fourth over when Rohit wanted to play a shot off Pierre's ball but was caught by Hetmyer. Rohit scored eight runs in ten balls before being dismissed.
After the initial setback, Rahul and captain Virat formed a big partnership and raised the team. During this time, Rahul completed his seventh half-century in 37 balls.
Earlier, put into bat, the West Indies team produced a fine batting display to post a challenging 207 for 5 against India in the first T20 International of the three-match series in Hyderabad on Friday, 6 December.
An aggressive Hetmyer made 56 off 41 balls which was studded with two boundaries and four hits over the fence to hold West Indies from one end after being sent into bat.
He first added 37 runs with Brandon King (31 off 23 balls) and then shared 71 runs with skipper Kieron Pollard (37 off 19 balls) to lay the base for the West Indies total.
Off-spinner Washington Sundar (1/34) leaked runs in the first over before Deepak Chahar (1/56) gave India the breakthrough in the next over, taking the wicket of Lendl Simmons, caught by Rohit Sharma in the first slip.
Evin Lewis (40 off 17) and young King then added 51 runs for the second wicket, during which they played some fearless shots, to take West Indies forward.
Lewis, in particular, was the more aggressive of the two as he dispatched to the stands any bad delivery that came his way.
He pulled Chahar for two sixes in the fourth over to make his intentions clear.
Lewis continued the onslaught and struck comeback man Bhuvneshwar Kumar for a six and a four in consecutive balls. He then smoked off-spinner Sundar over the cover boundary but perished in the next ball, LBW in search of one shot too many.
Young King and Hetmyer then added 37 runs for the third wicket before the former was stumped by Rishabh Pant off Ravindra Jadeja's (1/30) bowling.
Hetmyer, on the other hand, went about his business in a quiet fashion, hitting the bad deliveries out of the park to register his fifth half-century in T20 cricket in 35 balls.
But a double breakthrough by leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal (2/36) in the 18th over put a check on West Indies’ scoring rate.
