Team India were utterly clinical in chasing a paltry target of 206. They lost Shikhar Dhawan in the first over of the innings, but Virat Kohli walked in and shared two substantial partnerships with Ajinkya Rahane and Dinesh Karthik for the second (79 runs) and third wicket (122 runs), respectively, to see India home.
Wicketkeeper-batsman Karthik, who had been persisted with for the 5th ODI despite his failure in the previous match, ensured that he didn’t let himself, his captain or the team management down, by scoring a 52-ball half-century, his eighth in ODI cricket.
In a chase, India generally look the most secure with Kohli in the middle. And with their skipper batting through, the target was achieved with a whopping 13.1 overs (79 balls) to spare. After a string of half-centuries to his name recently since the Champions Trophy 2017, most of them unbeaten, Kohli notched up his 28th one-day century and won India the 5th ODI and this five-ODI series with a six off part-time off-spinner Roston Chase. He finished with 111*.
India, the overwhelming favourites, were under pressure to win the final ODI in Jamaica and with it the series 3-1. Because the first ODI had been washed out and West Indies, out of the blue, came back strongly in the fourth ODI and had reduced India’s series lead to 2-1. But, having been thrown down the gauntlet, India made sure they rose up to the challenge and didn’t falter in a chase of another small score, winning the fifth ODI by 8 wickets.
Kohli, for his 115-ball 111* (12×4 and 2×6), was awarded the man-of-the-match, and Ajinkya Rahane, for his series aggregate of 336 runs (including three half-centuries and one century) was awarded the man-of-the-series.
Except for their final total of 205/9, to get where Rovman Powell hit a couple of sixes off Mohammed Shami (49th over) and Umesh Yadav (50th over), the West Indies’ innings followed pretty much the same pattern as in the fourth ODI. A good start and a solid base provided by the openers and the top order were not capitalised on by the middle order batsmen, who struggled to rotate strike or find the boundary even sporadically. Only 41 runs were scored in the final ten overs, with the lower middle order batsmen such as Devendra Bishoo and Ashley Nurse struggling to get bat on the ball and eating up deliveries that went unscored of.
Kyle Hope, opening the innings, struck the ball sweetly from the word go. In addition to timing the ball well, the elder Hope was efficient in piercing the infield during the first 10 overs and was able to collect a flurry of boundaries (nine, in total) as a result. His 50-ball 46 got the West Indies off to a good start—they also brought up their fastest team fifty in this series, in 10.2 overs—providing them with all the momentum. West Indies were 76/1 at the midway point in the 16th over and they couldn’t have been in a better position at that stage.
But this is when the innings started to go downhill and never really recovered from the slump.
K Hope was one of the several West Indian batsmen who basically got themselves dismissed by playing loose or half-hearted shots and holing out in the deep or inside the circle. The 28-year-old Kyle was by far the best batsman in his team, who desperately needed him to carry on and add to his tally of 46 runs.
Kyle’s younger brother Shai Hope struggled for rhythm and consumed a whopping 98 balls for his 51. Having faced so many balls, the key for him was to remain at the crease and step up his and his team’s scoring rate. But after working so hard and at an inopportune time in the innings (42nd over), Shai top-edged a normal length delivery from Umesh Yadav and was brilliantly caught by Ajinkya Rahane at deep square leg, via a full-length dive to his left.
Brisk 30s from Jason Holder (36 off 34 balls, 4×4 and 1×6) and Rovman Powell (31 off 32 balls, 2×6) pushed the Windies total beyond 200, which was in doubt even at the start of the 49th over with the total at 189/8.
Mohammed Shami delivered wickets at the death, when the batsmen went after him, finishing with figures of 4/48 in his 10 overs. Umesh Yadav had made a bad start and conceded 22 runs in his first three overs, but he recovered well to finish with 3/53 in his 10-over quota. Umesh was the one to dismiss Kyle Hope, whose wicket was followed by Roston Chase on the very first ball he faced. Surely, the innings-changing over was the 16th, with the Vidarbha pacer striking on the fifth and sixth ball of this over.
The Indian frontline spinners, Ravindra Jadeja (10) and Kuldeep Yadav (10), did a good holding job and went close to taking wickets on a couple of occasions.They didn’t allow the West Indies middle order to cut loose during the middle overs, in particular. Jadhav was the only Indian spinner to take a wicket, of Jason Mohammed, taking 1/13 in the four overs he bowled.
5th ODI, cricket scorecard
Playing XIs
West Indies: Jason Holder (c), Evin Lews, Kyle Hope, Shai Hope, Roston Chase, Jason Mohammed, Rovman Powell, Devendra Bishoo, Kesrick Williams, Ashley Nurse, and Alzarri Joseph
India: Virat Kohli (c), Ajinkya Rahane, Shikhar Dhawan, Dinesh Karthik, MS Dhoni, Kedar Jadhav, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Shami, and Umesh Yadav
Scores
WI 205/9 (S Hope 51 and K Hope 46; Shami 4/48 and Umesh 3/53)
IND 206/2 (Kohli 111* and Karthik 50*; Joseph 1/39)
| West Indies innings (toss: West Indies, who chose to bat first) | |||||
| Batsman | Dismissal | Runs scored | No. of 4s | No. of 6s | Strike rate |
| Evin Lewis | caught Kohli, bowled Pandya | 9 (20) | 0 | 0 | 45.00 |
| Kyle Hope | caught Dhawan, bowled Umesh | 46 (50) | 9 | 0 | 92.00 |
| Shai Hope | caught Rahane, bowled Shami | 51 (98) | 5 | 0 | 52.04 |
| Roston Chase | leg before wicket Umesh | 0 (1) | 0 | 0 | 0.00 |
| J Mohammed | caught and bowled Jadhav | 16 (39) | 0 | 0 | 41.02 |
| Jason Holder | caught Dhawan, bowled Shami | 36 (34) | 4 | 1 | 105.88 |
| Rovman Powell | caught Dhoni, bowled Umesh | 31 (32) | 0 | 2 | 96.87 |
| Ashley Nurse | caught Kuldeep, bowled Shami | 0 (4) | 0 | 0 | 0.00 |
| Devendra Bishoo | caught Dhoni, bowled Shami | 6 (15) | 1 | 0 | 40.00 |
| Alzarri Joseph | not out | 3 (5) | 0 | 0 | 60.00 |
| Kesrick Williams | not out | 0 (2) | 0 | 0 | 0.00 |
| Extras: 7 (6 wides and 1 leg bye) | |||||
| WI’s total: 205/9 in 50 overs, at 4.10 runs per over | |||||
| Fall of wickets: 39/1 (Lewis, 8.2), 76/2 (K Hope, 15.5), 76/3 (Chase, 15.6), 115/4 (Mohammed, 30.3), 163/5 (Holder, 39.5), 168/6 (S Hope, 41.4), 171/7 (Nurse, 43.3), 182/8 (Bishoo, 46.6), and 205/9 (Powell, 49.4) | |||||
| India bowling | |||||
| Bowlers | Overs | Maidens | Runs conceded | Wickets taken | Economy rate |
| M Shami | 10 | 0 | 48 | 4 | 4.80 |
| Umesh Yadav | 10 | 1 | 53 | 3 | 5.30 |
| Hardik Pandya | 6 | 0 | 27 | 1 | 4.50 |
| Ravindra Jadeja | 10 | 1 | 27 | 0 | 2.70 |
| Kuldeep Yadav | 10 | 0 | 36 | 0 | 3.60 |
| Kedar Jadhav | 4 | 0 | 13 | 1 | 3.25 |
| Indian innings (target: 206 runs in 50 overs, at 4.12 runs per over) | |||||
| Batsman | Dismissal | Runs scored | No. of 4s | No. of 6s | Strike rate |
| Ajinkya Rahane | leg before wicket Bishoo | 39 (51) | 5 | 0 | 76.47 |
| Shikhar Dhawan | caught Lewis, bowled Joseph | 4 (3) | 1 | 0 | 133.33 |
| Virat Kohli | not out | 111 (115) | 12 | 2 | 96.52 |
| Dinesh Karthik | not out | 50 (52) | 5 | 0 | 96.15 |
| Batsmen who didn’t bat: MS Dhoni, Kedar Jadhav, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Shami, Umesh Yadav, and Kuldeep Yadav | |||||
| Extras: 2 (1 wide and 1 leg bye) | |||||
| India’s total: 206/2 in 36.5 overs, at 5.59 runs per over | |||||
| Fall of wickets: 5/1 (Dhawan, 0.6), 84/2 (Rahane, 18.5) | |||||
| West Indies bowling | |||||
| Bowlers | Overs | Maidens | Runs conceded | Wickets taken | Economy rate |
| Alzarri Joseph | 7 | 0 | 39 | 1 | 5.57 |
| Jason Holder | 8 | 1 | 35 | 0 | 4.37 |
| Devendra Bishoo | 8 | 0 | 42 | 1 | 5.25 |
| Kesrick Williams | 8 | 0 | 40 | 0 | 5.00 |
| Ashley Nurse | 4 | 0 | 34 | 0 | 8.50 |
| Rovman Powell | 1 | 0 | 6 | 0 | 6.00 |
| Roston Chase | 0.5 | 0 | 9 | 0 | 10.80 |