Captain Rohit Sharma led from the front with a classic fifty which was topped with Dinesh Karthik's fiery cameo as India registered an emphatic 68-run victory in the T20I opener of the five-match series on Friday (July 29).
India rode on Rohit's blistering 44-ball-64 and Karthik's calculated assault of 41 off 19 to post 190/6 for the West Indies to chase.
Further, Indian bowlers put up a show to fold the Men in Maroon to 122/8.
Meanwhile, Rohit registered two sensational world records in the shorted format of the game.
He went past New Zealand's Martin Guptill to surge to top in the list of top run-scorers in T20 Internationals. The India skipper achieved the milestone en route his 35-ball fifty in the T20 series opener against West Indies in Trinidad.
Couple of days back, Guptill had surpassed Rohit to become the leading run-getter in the shortest format. He was 20 runs ahead of Rohit before the Indian recouped lost ground.
Former India captain Virat Kohli (3,308), Ireland's ODI skipper Paul Stirling (2,894), and Australian captain Aaron Finch, who is fifth on the list with 2,855 runs are nipping on Guptill's heels.
Rohit didn't just leapfrogged Guptill, he also eclipsed Kohli in the list of most 50-plus scores in men's T20Is. Kohli held the first position before notched up a fifty – his 31st 50-plus score in the 20-over format.
Most fifty-plus scores in Men's T20I:
31 - Rohit Sharma*
30 - Virat Kohli
27 - Babar Azam
23 - David Warner
22 - Martin Guptill
On a track where there was spongy bounce with a bit of turn and grip, Indian spinners Ravichandran Ashwin (2/22 in 4 overs), Ravindra Jadeja (1/26 in 4 overs) and Ravi Bishnoi (2/26 in 4 overs) got wickets at regular intervals to restrict the hosts at 122 for eight in 20 overs.
Arshdeep Singh (2/24 in 4 overs) and Bhuvneshwar Kumar (1/11 in 2 overs), despite some initial pasting, got their share of breakthroughs. Hence, a below-par show by top-order, save Rohit, didn't have telling consequences on India.
For coach Rahul Dravid, almost all the strategic changes in the playing XI seemed to work.
