Hope Springs, Ranchi Burns: West Indies Chase 250 and Level the Series

There are nights when a total of 249 feels like a fortress, and there are nights when it turns out to be a starting point. Ranchi gave us the second kind. India batted first after West Indies chose to field, Sanju Samson made 82 from 41 balls, and Shreyas Iyer and Tilak Varma added 83 from 33 at the end. It looked like a winning score until Shai Hope started his reply.

West Indies were 5 for 2 after four balls, both wickets to Mayank Yadav. Hope stayed in for the rest of the chase and finished on 102 not out from 45 balls, with nine sixes. Sherfane Rutherford made 84 from 37 alongside him, and Romario Shepherd finished it with 34 not out from 13. India 249/5 (20 overs). West Indies 252/4 (18.3 overs). West Indies won by six wickets with nine balls remaining, and the five-match series is level at 1-1.

A chase of 250 that begins with Kamil Pooran caught off the third ball and Shimron Hetmyer bowled by the fourth should, by most of the logic we bring to this game, be over. West Indies didn't treat it that way. Hope and Rovman Powell added 53 from 27 balls, Powell hitting four fours and a six in his 24, and the powerplay ended at 72 for 3. That was seven fewer than India had made in theirs, for two more wickets.

Then Rutherford arrived and the chase changed character. He reached fifty from 24 balls with five sixes, and he and Hope put on 120 from 54 balls for the fourth wicket. West Indies were 122 for 3 at drinks and 150 in 11.5 overs. When Kuldeep Yadav had Rutherford caught behind by Samson at 178 for 4 in the 15th over, 72 were still needed from 35 balls. Shepherd made that look straightforward: 34 from 13 balls with three fours and three sixes, in an unbroken stand of 74 from 26 with Hope.

The bowling deserves its own sentence. On a night when India scored at more than twelve an over, Roston Chase bowled four overs for 24 and took three wickets: Abhishek Sharma, Ishan Kishan and Shivam Dube. In a scorecard this loud, his figures stand out for how quiet they are. Without that spell, West Indies would have been chasing a lot more than 250.

India's batting deserved a better result. Samson reached fifty from 21 balls and was 72 at drinks, with India 127 for 1 after ten overs. He and Kishan put on 97 from 43 balls for the second wicket. The one quiet period came after that: from 139 for 1 in the 12th over, India lost Kishan, Dube and Samson for 23 runs and were 162 for 4 after 14.3 overs. Iyer (40 from 18) and Tilak (44 not out from 18) then added 83 from 33 balls, and India scored 87 from their last 33 balls.

The defence of 249 is where India lost the match. Mayank Yadav's first over gave India two wickets and a real chance, and he finished with three for 36 from his three overs. The rest of the attack took one wicket between them. Arshdeep Singh's four overs cost 45, Kuldeep Yadav's 53, and Axar Patel's 3.3 overs went for 63. Six Indian bowlers were used, and none of them conceded less than eleven an over.

The scorecard tells you what kind of surface this was: 501 runs in 38.3 overs, nine wickets, and 33 sixes, 13 from India and 20 from West Indies. Both powerplays went past 70. Chase was the only bowler in the match to concede less than ten an over. The side batting second scored faster than the side batting first and got home with an over and a half to spare. A score that would win most T20Is turned out to be par here.

Hope opened the chase and was still there at the end. He watched two partners go in the first four balls, reached fifty from 24 balls, and needed only 21 more for his second fifty. Nine sixes and six fours made up 78 of his 102 runs. What stood out most was the way he changed gears. He outscored Powell in the early rebuild, scored 29 of the first 50 they put on, then played the supporting role as Rutherford made 68 of their first 100 together. When Rutherford fell he became the senior partner again, with Shepherd hitting hard at the other end. Hope did whatever the chase needed at each stage, and he hit nine sixes while doing it.

We got the result wrong. Our preview made India clear favourites, based on their eight-wicket win in Lucknow, and West Indies won by six wickets.

Our two players to watch did better. We picked Sherfane Rutherford for West Indies and said Ranchi could be his night if he got a platform; he made 84 from 37 balls. For India we picked Mayank Yadav, and he took three wickets, two of them in his first over, although he went at twelve an over. We called Nicholas Pooran West Indies' X-factor, but he was not in the XI. We expected Abhishek Sharma and Ishan Kishan to open for India; Sanju Samson opened with Abhishek instead and top-scored with 82. We did not pick out Shai Hope as the player to watch, although we did note his form on the tour, and he won the match.

The five-match series is level at 1-1 after India won in Lucknow and West Indies won in Ranchi. The 3rd T20I is at the Holkar Cricket Stadium in Indore on October 11, followed by Hyderabad on October 14 and Bengaluru on October 17. India have two days to work out how to defend a total, which is a strange problem for a side that has just made 249.