India were on Sunday blown away by West Indies opener Evin Lewis who hammered an unbeaten hundred to power the hosts to a dominating nine-wicket win in the one-off T20I at Sabina Park in Kingston. Chasing a challenging target of 191, opener Lewis made a mockery of the Indian bowling attack and helped West Indies salvage some pride in the format in which they are the reigning world champions. India captain Virat Kohli was critical of his team's performance, saying the visitors were sloppy with both the bat and ball and did not deserve to win.
Put into bat, India posted 190/6 on a batting belter but Lewis blasted an unbeaten 125 off 62 balls with as many as 12 sixes and six fours as the reigning World T20 champions knocked off the target in only 18.3 overs. The Trinidad left-hander got a couple of reprieves with Mohammed Shami and Dinesh Karthik being the offenders.
"Even in the first innings, we could have added 25-30 extra. We were on course for 230. And in the field as well, we dropped a few chances and if you don't grab them you don't deserve to win," Kohli said after the match.
"If you give a good start up the order, one batsman has to bat through. I think Dinesh was good, but we needed someone to get 80-90 which a team needs in T20 cricket, I think. Then we didn't start well with the ball and didn't field well either. All these games are good feeders of how guys react to situations," he added.
Kohli feels India's T20 team is still in a transition mode and there would be bad days but overall he was happy with the team's performance.
"West Indies have a good T20 team, they have carried on with the same team for a couple of years. And in experimental stage, we'd have up and downs. But we need to keep going. One game in the ODIs we lost, we won three convincingly," he said.
"T20s is anyone's game, and one game doesn't make a series according to me. Overall, we enjoyed the tour."
Meanwhile, West Indies skipper Carlos Brathwaite said he was happy with the way his players expressed themselves on the field.
"Very happy. Yesterday we asked for the batters to go out and express themselves. I gave them the captain's incentive, whoever goes and gets a fifty gets half my match fee. We wanted to put smiles on the faces of the fans and that's what we come back to do," said Brathwaite.
"We wanted to wrestle the game back against them. We've seen the IPL, we know how Bhuvneshwar Kumar bowls at the death and we wanted to make him bowl more in the first few overs and that's a box ticked.
Brathwaite also heaped praise on Lewis and Kestick Williams for their performance.
"Evin just played magnificently. He just played on, played through so big kudos to him. It was a good score on the board, but we always knew we could get it," he said.
"Kestick Williams has produced a fantastic performance, carries it on from Pakistan to Afghanistan and here. His figures might not reflect it, but he got Kohli out, the direct hit, and in the sixth over he had two new batsmen in and that certainly helped," he added.
Lewis, who was adjudged the Man-of-the-Match, said he always had the belief in himself despite of not doing well in the ODI series.
"It was a good game. Quality bowlers, and once you get a hundred against a team like India, it's a good hundred. Five games in a row, in the ODIs, I didn't do well. But I kept believing in my ability and today I came out trumps," Lewis said.
"Chris going after the bowling makes it easier for me to score, so I'm thankful to bat with him and I hope I can keep doing my best for the West Indies," he added.
