A combined bowling effort helped India stop West Indies three runs short of their total in the first ODI of the three-match series between the sides at Queen’s Park Oval, Trinidad on Friday. Shikhar Dhawan, Player of the Match and Indian skipper, said, ‘ Disappointed not to get the 100, but it was a good effort by the team. We good a good score in the end. There were nerves in the end and didn’t expect it to turn that way. We kept our cool and one small change in the end where we pushed the fine leg back and that really helped us. The discussion was to use the bigger side as much as we can and we want to keep on learning and make ourselves better for the rest of the competition.’
Nicholas Pooran, West Indies skipper, said, ‘ Feels like a win for us. Bittersweet, but yeah we keep talking about batting 50 overs and everyone saw what we are capable of and hopefully we can go strength to strength from here. Looking forward to the rest of the series. It was a good batting track and our bowlers did a commendable job to restrict them. It’s difficult to lose but we will take this one. We need to believe in each other and I keep telling everyone that we will have our challenges, but important to focus on the positives.’