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Spinners shine as India restrict West Indies to 129/7

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Press Trust of India Mirpur
Last Updated : Mar 23 2014 | 8:55 PM IST
Indian spinners yet again put on a dominating show as they restricted defending champions West Indies to a modest 129 for seven in their second group league encounter of the ICC World Twenty20 here today.
Amit Mishra again performed admirably as he was the pick of the Indian bowlers with fantastic figures of two for 18 while Ravichandran Ashwin (1/24) also kept the batsmen under tight leash with his leg-stump line.
Ravindra Jadeja (3/48) took some stick from Lendl Simmons (27) but should also be lauded for getting important breakthroughs. Team India's spin trio accounted for six of the seven wickets that fell during the innings.
Chris Gayle (34) was the top scorer but was not at all in his element as the other West Indies batsmen showed their ineptness against a quality spin attack.
But no one can take any credit away from Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who bowled a brilliant first-spell inside the six Powerplay overs which yielded only 24 runs. His three-over spell read an astonishing 3-0-3-0 with 16 dot balls against a crack pair of Gayle and Dwayne Smith.
Smith in fact was repeatedly beaten trying to get a feel of Bhuvneshwar's outswingers as there was relentless pressure on the Caribbean batsmen from the onset.
At the other end, Gayle was lucky to survive a scare even before opening his account. He tried to flash hard at a length ball from Shami and an easy catch was dropped by Ravichandran Ashwin at first slip.
Gayle tried to make up for it in Shami's next over as he hit him for a six over long on and then punched him through vacant mid-wicket region for a boundary. When Mishra was introduced into the attack, Gayle welcomed him with a six. It was his routine "stand and deliver" six over long on.
But the leggie was distinctly unlucky when he varied his length and bowled a fuller delivery next up. Gayle tried the slog sweep and it was one of the easiest of skiers that was dropped by none other than Yuvraj Singh. He made a mess of it by completely misjudging the catch. The batsman was on 19 then.

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First Published: Mar 23 2014 | 8:55 PM IST

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