The Indian team started the West Indies tour with a win. India defeated West Indies by 3 runs in the first match of the three-match ODI series. Shikhar Dhawan is the hero of this victory, there is also more fast bowler Mohammad Siraj and wicketkeeper Sanju Samson.
Actually, Dhawan was elected player of the match after playing an innings of 97 runs. But in the last over, Siraj did not allow the Windies team to score 15 runs to win and the match was overturned. But in this last over, Samson also saved 4 runs by taking a brilliant dive. Had he not been able to do so, the match would have gone out of hand.
Let us tell you that while chasing the target of 309 runs in the match, the Windies team scored 294 runs for 6 wickets in 49 overs. From here, the team needed 15 runs to win in the last over and Romario Sheffert 31 and Akil Hussain were playing 32 runs at the crease.
Sanju saved the match by diving like this
Mohammad Siraj, who brought the last over here, allowed only 11 runs to be scored. In this over of Siraj, only one boundary (four) was hit, which was hit by Sheffert. But it is to be seen here that the Windies team needed 8 runs in the last 2 balls. Then Shepherd was playing too much back in the leg side under the strategy. During this, Siraj followed Shepherd and threw the ball towards the feet, but it went too much towards the leg side.
The ball went wide and was about to go for the boundary when wicketkeeper Sanju Samson dived with all his might. Here Sanju caught the ball showing his full stretch and here the Windies got only one run of wide. Had it been a four, I would have got 5 runs. In such a situation, only 3 runs would have been needed to win the last two balls. But Sanju kept the match in his possession by stopping the four.