Shai Hope and Shimron Hetmyer guided West Indies to a comfortable eight-wicket win over India in the first ODI at the MA Chidambaram Stadium here on Sunday.
With this win, the Carribean side have a 1-0 lead in the three-match ODI series. Chasing 288, Hope scored unbeaten 102 runs while Nicholas Pooran played a knock of 29* runs.
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Windies lost the opener Sunil Ambris (9) in the fifth over as he was scalped by pacer Deepak Chahar. Then Hope and Hetmyer had a 218-run partnership for the second wicket, which ensured their victory.
Hetmyer was caught in front of the wickets by Mohammed Shami in the 39th over.
Earlier, the visitors won the toss and asked India to bat first. Batting first team scored 287/8 in 50 overs. Wicket-keeper batsman Rishabh Pant scored his maiden ODI half-century.
Pant, while playing in his 13th 50-over game, played a knock of 71 runs off 69 balls. West Indies skipper Kieron Pollard sent him back to the pavilion in the 40th over.
The 22-year-old batsman built the much-needed partnership of 114-run with Shreyas Iyer for the fourth wicket. India lost KL Rahul (6) and skipper Virat Kohli (4) cheaply as they were dismissed by Sheldon Cottrell.
Opener Rohit Sharma became a victim of Alzarri Joseph after adding 36 runs. Iyer scored 70 runs before losing his wicket to Joseph.
Pant was struggling with the bat in the recently concluded T20I series against West Indies where he just scored 49 runs in three games.
Kedhar Jadhav and Ravindra Jadeja provided the much-needed partnership of 59-run for the sixth wicket. Jadhav scored 40 runs while Jadeja added 21 runs to the scoreboard.
For Windies, Cottrell, Keemo Paul and Joseph scalped two wickets each. Both the teams will now face each other in the second game at Visakhapatnam on December 18.