Windies 207/5 in first T20I against India
Hyderabad: Shimron Hetmyer struck a quick half-century as West Indies produced a fine batting display to post a challenging 207 for 5 against India in the first T20 International of the three-match series here on Friday.
An aggressive Hetmyer made 56 off 41 balls which was studded with two boundaries and four hits over the fence to hold West Indies from one end after being sent into bat.
He first added 37 runs with Brandon King (31 off 23 balls) and then shared 71 runs with skipper Kieron Pollard (37 off 19 balls) to lay the base for the West Indies total.
The Indians, however, were far from impressive on the field as Washington Sundar and Rohit Sharma dropped a few catches.
Off-spinner Washington Sundar (1/34) leaked runs in the first over before Deepak Chahar (1/56) gave India the breakthrough in the next over, taking the wicket of Lendl Simmons, caught by Rohit Sharma in the first slip.
Evin Lewis (40 off 17) and young King then added 51 runs for the second wicket, during which they played some fearless shots, to take West Indies forward.
Lewis, in particular, was the more aggressive of the two as he dispatched to the stands any bad delivery that came his way. He pulled Chahar for two sixes in the fourth over to make his intentions clear.
Lewis continued the onslaught and struck comeback man Bhuvneshwar Kumar for a six and a four in consecutive balls. He then smoked off-spinner Sundar over the cover boundary but perished in the next ball, LBW in search of one shot too many.
Young King and Hetmyer then added 37 runs for the third wicket before the former was stumped by Rishabh Pant off Ravindra Jadeja's (1/30) bowling.
Hetmyer, on the other hand, went about his business in a quiet fashion, hitting the bad deliveries out of the park to register his fifth half-century in T20 cricket in 35 balls.
But a double breakthrough by leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal (2/36) in the 18th over put a check on West Indies' scoring rate.
Hetmyer was the first to depart in the first delivery of the 18th over when he gave a simple catch to Rohit at deep backward square and then a ball later, Pollard was cleaned up by Chahal.
Jason Holder (24 not out off 9 balls) and Dinesh Ramdin (11 not out off 7) remained unbeaten as West Indies scored 63 runs off the last five overs.
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Padikkal's maiden double, Ravichandran ton propel Karnataka to 689/6
Lucknow (PTI): Skipper Devdutt Padikkal led from the front with a maiden double hundred in first-class cricket as a dominant Karnataka posted an imposing 689 for six, compounding Uttarakhand's misery in their Ranji Trophy semifinal here on Monday.
On another fruitful day for the Karnataka batters, Ravichandran Smaran too helped himself to a fluent century, scoring an unbeaten 121 off 191 balls with the help of 11 boundaries.
Padikkal made a monumental 232 off 330 balls, striking 29 fours and three sixes during his long vigil at the crease.
Resuming at their overnight total of 355 for two, Karnataka started the second's play from where it had left on first evening, with the duo of Padikkal and Karun Nair (60 off 105 balls) stitching together a partnership of 129 runs for the third wicket to continue their team's domination.
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Uttarakhand tasted the day's first success when medium pacer Abhay Negi dismissed Karun with a back of a length delivery that angled away, and the nick was taken by wicketkeeper Saurabh Rawat.
Padikkal, who began the day at 148 not out, continued to play confidently and reached his first-ever double century in 288 balls, with Smaran too looking good at the other end.
However, having added 59 runs with Smaran, Padikkal tried to work a turning Lakshya Raichandani delivery towards fine-leg but only ended up edging it to Rawat behind the stumps, bringing to an end his long stay in the middle amid a round of applause and acknowledgement.
Shreyas Gopal was on his way back for a duck after facing just six, bowled by Aditya Rawat as Uttarakhand seemed to have finally found an opening to get to the Karnataka lower-order at 485 for five.
However, after his captain's dismissal, Smaran found an able ally in wicketkeeper Kruthik Krishna, with whom the the 22-year-old explosive batter added 123 runs for the sixth wicket to further frustrate Uttarakhand.
Krishna's contribution in the stand was a handsome 60 off 103 balls, and his knock was laced with six fours and a six at the Ekana Cricket Stadium.
Off-spinner Avneesh Sudha broke the stand when the ball took a deflection off Krishna's bat to crash on to his stumps after the batter tries to defend it.
Uttarakhand's agony did not end there though, as seamer Vidyadhar Patil (35 batting off 103 balls) too chipped in with the bat, while adding 81 runs in an unbroken seventh-wicket partnership with Smaran.
On the first day, India's Test and ODI specialist KL Rahul (141), in the company of Padikkal, set the tone for Karnataka with a magnificent hundred.
