Trinidad, June 6: The Indian bowlers did well to keep the West Indies down to a modest score of 214 in the first ODI being played at Queen’s Park Oval here at Port of Spain. It was an all-round show by the Indian bowlers with Harbhajan Singh taking three for 32 while Munaf Patel, Praveen Kumar and Suresh Raina took two wicket each.

Darren Sammy once again had the luck of the coin going his way as he won the toss for the second time in a row. The West Indies skipper had no hesitation in opting to bat first on a hot and sunny morning in Port of Spain. India made just one change to their squad from the side that played in the T20 game, legspinner Amit Mishra replacing Ravichandran Ashwin.

However, the West Indies top order disappointed with their batting approach. Opener Lendl Simmons (6) charged down the track in order to accelerate the run-rate [just 23 runs from the first six overs] but only managed to top-edge a Praveen Kumar delivery to Harbhajan Singh at mid-off. Darren Bravo (4) perished an over later, edging a delivery from Munaf Patel to Rohit Sharma standing at widish slip. Then, with the West Indies score at 59, Harbhajan Singh struck the third blow for India in the 19th over. The offspinner had opener Kirk Edwards top-edging an attempted pull shot to Virat Kohli at first slip.

Then came the partnership that might have given West Indies some chance to make a match out of this game. Ramnaresh Sarwan and Marlon Samuels added 82 runs for the fourth wicket before Sarwan ended up nicking a wide delivery down the leg side from Munaf Patel to wicketkeeper Parthiv Patel. Sarwan made 56, the 36th time the middle-order batsman had gone past the half-century mark. The hosts were 141 for four at the fall of Sarwan’s wicket.

43 runs from the batting powerplay [over 37.0 to 42.0] helped up the West Indies scoring rate to some extent, but a flurry of wickets thereafter prevented the hosts from finishing with a bang. Samuels scored 55 before he was bowled by Suresh Raina while Harbhajan accounted for the wickets of former Mumbai Indians teammate Dwayne Bravo [22 off 20] and Carlton Baugh [16 off 17] in successive overs.

From a score of 173 for four at the start of the 43rd over, West Indies slumped to a modest score of 214 for nine in their allotted 50 overs.

Brief Score: West Indies214/9 in 50.0 overs (Ramnaresh Sarwan 56, Marlon Samuels 55, Harbhajan Singh 3/32, Suresh Raina 2/23)