(ESPNCRICINFO) – ODI cricket, especially the bilateral variety, is fighting for survival. One of the two competing sides has called off the domestic List A competition this year amid financial crisis. You wouldn’t have guessed that, as Virat Kohli and Shubman Gill treated a festive full house in Thiruvananthapuram to centuries at the start of India’s home international season. A major part of the win, though, was set up by Kuldeep Yadav’s 4 for 40 on ODI comeback to restrict West Indies to 295 despite a 135-run opening stand between Justin Greaves and John Campbell.
On another day, Kuldeep would have been the main event, but few sights are more loved by India than their batters chasing down ODI targets around dinner time in the festival season. Especially when one of them is Kohli, who went past 15000 runs during the innings. While his 55th ODI hundred only extended his lead at the top, he did go level with Sachin Tendulkar on 60 List A hundreds. At 86 in all international cricket, is 100 hundreds too fantastical to think of?
And what of Gill, India’s captain who arguably gave up two hundreds in England with cramp or neck pain? He reached his 10th ODI hundred in just his 67th innings, the third-fastest to the mark. His overall count reached 22.
Not long ago, Greaves brought up his maiden hundred. For the first 20 overs or so, India looked like they had no answers for the fourth different opening combination West Indies had tried in the last five ODIs. The tall Greaves drove beautifully against the new ball even if he didn’t always get the length to do so. As India experimented with Reddy with the new ball, Greaves did get just the headstart you dream of as a batter, driving three full balls for four and shovelling a free hit for another, all in the second over. Since then, the run rate came down to under a run a ball only in the 29th over.
Missing Jasprit Bumrah, who is in Japan to represent India in the Asian Games, and Mohammed Siraj, who is perhaps still looking for his best rhythm, India needed a point of difference in the middle overs. Having warmed the bench for the entirety of India’s last ODI series and having looked off colour in a Test in Sri Lanka, Kuldeep roared back to take four of the first five wickets to fall, engineering a collapse of 4 for 22 from 176 for 1. His career tally read 198 wickets at 31.6 balls per wicket, the third-best among spinners who have gone past 175 wickets.
