Antigua, June 13 : West Indies bowlers produced a clinical performance after Kieron Pollard and Lendl Simmons laid the foundation with fluent fifties, as they crushed India by 103 runs in the fourth One-day International, here today.
Sent into bat after Suresh Raina won the toss, Pollard top-scored with a typically aggressive 70 off 72 balls while opener Simmons notched up a fluent 67 off 78 deliveries, to lift the hosts to 249 for eight, their highest total of the series, after the Indian bowlers had them in a spot of bother at 89 for four.
In reply, India crumbled in the face of some disciplined work from the host bowlers, especially Anthony Martins and Andre Russell, who shared seven wickets between them to bundle out the visitors for 146 in 39 overs.
The victory not only broke a sequence of three successive defeats but also restored some pride for the hosts.India made three changes to the squad bringing in Ravichandran Aswin, Manoj Tiwary and Ishant Sharma.
Tiwary, playing in place of ShikharDhawan, failed to capitalise on the opportunity edging Darren Sammy to Carlton Baugh, but Parthiv Patel picked up a few useful boundaries to set it up for India.
However, after getting his eye in, Patel drove one uppishly for Sammy to complete a fine left-handed catch off his own bowling.So was the case with Virat Kohli (22 off 33 balls), who got out, courtesy a smart piece of work by Baugh off the bowling of leg-spinner Martin.
As far as Subramaniam Badrinath was concerned, he looked out of sorts from the word go and the West Indian bowlers,especially Russell, troubled him with the short stuffs, before the all-rounder had the Chennai batsman caught behind. PTI
