India beat West Indies by 14 runs in the third T20I at Holkar Stadium, Indore, on October 11. India made 223 all out, and West Indies finished on 209 for 7. With the win, India go 2-1 up in the five-match series. The fourth match is on Wednesday, October 14, in Hyderabad.
Abhishek set it up, then India slipped
It didn’t start well. Sanju Samson fell for 3 in the second over, caught behind off Shamar Joseph, according to the myKhel scorecard. Then Abhishek Sharma took over — 69 off 30 balls, with six fours and five sixes, reaching his fifty in just 18 deliveries, per Sportradar. He and Ishan Kishan added 108 runs for the second wicket in only 40 balls, Nowlivo reported.
That’s when West Indies fought back. Roston Chase, who finished with 2 for 38, removed Kishan (37 off 18) and captain Shreyas Iyer in quick succession, and India slipped from 115 for 1 to 124 for 4. Tilak Varma made 28 off 16, Nitish Kumar Reddy 21 off 14, Axar Patel 20 off 14 and Prince Yadav hit 13 not out off 6 — and India were bowled out off the final ball for 223. Shamar Joseph and Shamar Springer took two wickets each.
The chase, and the 18th over that ended it
West Indies won the toss and chose to bowl, Cricket World reported. Then came the twist nobody saw coming: Shai Hope, who had walked into Indore on a golden run — centuries in the second and third ODIs of this tour and a hundred in the Ranchi T20I, per CricTracker — fell with the score on 7 in the second over.
Shimron Hetmyer (43 off 26) and Kamil Pooran (42 off 27) rebuilt with a 60-run stand. But Naman Dhir dismissed both of them and finished with 2 for 39, Nowlivo reported. Sherfane Rutherford kept the hope alive with 32 off 20 — until Arshdeep Singh’s 18th over. He struck twice in it, removing Keemo Paul and then bowling Rutherford. West Indies needed 50 from 13 balls.
Shamar Springer gave it one last swing — 35 not out off 11 balls, striking at over 300. With 37 needed off the final over, he smashed 22 off it. Still 14 short. West Indies finished 209 for 7, and Arshdeep, whose 3 for 44 included that decisive 18th over, was named Player of the Match, ESPNcricinfo reported. Cricinfo’s own match rating had Abhishek as the most valuable player.
Where the series stands
Three matches, three shootouts. In the first T20I at Lucknow on October 6, India chased 171 for just two wickets to win by 8 wickets — Shreyas Iyer hit an unbeaten 102 off 43, per CricFacts. In the second at Ranchi on October 9, West Indies pulled off the highest successful chase in their T20I history, hunting down 250 with six wickets and nine balls to spare — Hope 102 not out off 45, Rutherford 84 off 37, CricTracker reported.
Now Indore, and India are 2-1 ahead. The two sides made 432 runs between them on Sunday night, and the small square boundaries at Holkar — about 56 metres, per ETV Bharat — again turned the game into a hitting contest. Overall, India and West Indies have now met 33 times in T20Is: India have won 21, West Indies 11, with one no-result, according to Business Standard.
The fourth T20I is on Wednesday, October 14, at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad, starting 7 pm IST, The Living Draft reported. India need one more win to take the series. West Indies need both. After three run-fests, expect the bowlers to be under pressure again.
The teams that took the field
India: Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson, Ishan Kishan, Shreyas Iyer (captain), Tilak Varma, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Naman Dhir, Axar Patel, Arshdeep Singh, Mayank Yadav, Prince Yadav — per Cricket World’s published XI.
West Indies: Shai Hope (captain), Kamil Pooran, Shimron Hetmyer, Rovman Powell, Sherfane Rutherford, Quentin Sampson, Keemo Paul, Roston Chase, Shamar Springer, Shamar Joseph, Gudakesh Motie. Two things stand out: India backed their young pace attack to the end, and West Indies kept the same batting core that had chased 250 two nights earlier.
How the chase fell apart, wicket by wicket
Cricket World’s fall-of-wickets record shows the chase was never quite on rails: Hope gone at 7 for 1 in the second over, Hetmyer at 67 for 2, Powell at 82 for 3, Pooran at 105 for 4, Sampson at 151 for 5, Keemo Paul at 169 for 6 and Rutherford at 174 for 7 in the 18th over. That 18th over — Arshdeep removing Paul and bowling Rutherford — is where the game truly turned. Only Springer’s 11-ball assault kept the margin to 14.
A rivalry built for run-fests
This fixture has always produced big nights. The first India–West Indies T20I was played on June 12, 2009, and West Indies won it, CricTracker noted. The biggest scoring night came at Lauderhill in August 2016: West Indies made 245 for 6, and India replied with 244 for 4, falling short by one run, per CricFacts. Sunday’s 432-run night in Indore sits in that tradition. First-innings totals at Holkar usually average 178 to 200, Mathrubhumi reported — India were well past that and still nearly didn’t have enough.
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