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Indian leg spinner, Yuzvendra Chahal, has praised the Indian pace attack for successfully defending the total in the first ODI against West Indies. India won the first match of the ODI series against the West Indies by 3 runs. Shikhar led the Indian team and were told to bat first. The skipper top scored with 97. However, it was the bowling attack that stood the ground against Men in Maroon yesterday.
India managed to score 308/7 at the end of 50 overs, thanks to Dhawan, Gill, and Shreyas Iyer for their fifties. The Indian pace attack managed to defend the total. But it wasn't too easy as the Caribbean onslaught carried on until the last ball of the match. With 15 runs required off the last over, Siraj came to the rescue. He defend 5 runs off the last ball and guided Team India to victory. Chahal later heaped praise on Siraj for successfully defending it.
"We had confidence and belief that Siraj could defend 15 runs in the final over because of the way he was bowling his yorkers. In his previous two overs as well, he had missed hardly one or two yorkers," Chahal said in the post match press conference. He said that the Indian pace attack was experienced even in the absence of its star pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah.
"They have played a lot of matches, they have a lot of experience in IPL and in first-class cricket. You cannot say that this line-up is inexperienced," Chahal added. He said that the team knew that they would win the match. He added that he wanted to bowl only on the off side. "I knew that the ball was getting old and you can beat the batter by turning it. I was changing my line and bowling wider because the leg side boundary was small. I wanted them to hit me over the covers," Chahal added.
The first match of the series ended up being a last ball thriller. And we can be rest assured that we are in for an exciting ODI series ahead. The second ODI is slated to be played on 24th July 2022 at the same venue.