Kuldeep reels West Indies in, Gill and Kohli tons knock them out

ODI cricket, especially the bilateral variety, is fighting for survival. One of the two competing sides has called off the domestic List A competition this year amid financial crisis. You wouldn't have been able to guess that as Virat Kohli and Shubman Gill treated a festive full house in Thiruvananthapuram to centuries at the start of India's home international season. A major part of the win, though, was set up by Kuldeep Yadav's 4 for 40 on ODI comeback to restrict West Indies to 295 despite a 135-run opening stand between Justin Greaves and John Campbell.

On another day, Kuldeep would have been the main event, but there are few sights India loves more than their batters chasing down ODI targets around dinner time in the festival season. Especially when one of them is Kohli, who went past 15000 runs during the innings. While his 55th ODI hundred only extended his lead at the top, he did go level with Sachin Tendulkar on 60 List A hundreds. At 86 in all international cricket, is 100 hundreds too fantastical to think of?

And what of Gill, India's captain who arguably gave up two hundreds in England with cramp or neck pain? He reached his 10th ODI hundred in just his 67th innings, the third-fastest to the mark. His overall count reached 22.

Not long ago, Greaves brought up his maiden hundred. For the first 20 overs or so, India looked like they had no answers for the fourth different opening combination West Indies had tried in the last five ODIs. The tall Greaves drove beautifully against the new ball even if he didn't always get the length to do so. As India experimented with Reddy with the new ball, Greaves did get just the headstart you dream of as a batter, driving three full balls for four and shovelling a free hit for another, all in the second over. Since then, the run rate came down to under a run a ball only in the 29th over.

Brought on to bowl after even the debutant Naman Dhir had had a bowl, Kuldeep provided the first breakthrough. Campbell, who had taken down Ravindra Jadeja in the powerplay, was beaten in the air on the sweep, offering a low catch to short fine leg.

Kuldeep and Jadeja then turned the screws on Keacy Carty with Prasidh Krishna getting him out in the 31st over. This is the period when sides look to score quickly before two balls give way to one at the end of the 34th over and an extra fielder goes out at the end of the 40th. This is when Kuldeep put together one of his best recent spells. Shai Hope tried to force the pace, charged Kuldeep, was beaten in the flight, and sliced him to point.

Greaves, who had battled cramps all innings and helplessly watched the slowdown, tried to take risks against Kuldeep after bringing up his hundred. Having played two reverse sweeps for nothing, he tried the regulation one only to be out lbw. Kuldeep had to review the not-out call; it turned out he had bowled just the perfect ball: one that pitched just on, didn't exactly turn back in but cut down on its initial angle to be just hitting the top of off. The next one turned and jumped at the 19-year-old Jewel Andrew, replacement for Sherfane Rutherford, away to attend to "a personal matter".

Gill was as efficient in his run-scoring as he has been in scoring 50 or more in seven out of nine innings this year. West Indies weren't. Keemo Paul, substituting for Greaves, dropped him at short point on 11, the bowling was pedestrian and Gill batted in auto-pilot almost.

Someone not in auto-pilot was Kohli, who continues to explore more gears to his game. He started off with a six off Alzarri Joseph, brought up an ODI hundred with a six for the first time and, at this stage of his career, he hit his highest number of sixes in an ODI innings: nine of them. This was not a man facing the end of his career and looking to secure his place for the World Cup, this was a man finding new ways to dominate the opposition.

A clear marker was Kohli's taking down of Joseph, who had extended his good run against Rohit Sharma with his wicket and wanted to do the same with Kohli. By the end of the night, Kohli had scored 53 off 26 from Joseph, hitting him for three sixes.

Gill could just accumulate in the middle overs, but he did once in a while come out of his bunker and match Kohli like he did with an inside-out six off Gudakesh Motie. However, it was hard to look away from Kohli as he just kept accelerating and brought up the target in just 41.4 overs.