Antigua, June 13: Lendl Simmons and Kieron Pollard struck half-centuries to take the West Indies to a score of 249 in the fourth ODI against India at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium here in Antigua. India will need to better that score if they are to take a 4-0 lead in the five-match series.

Suresh Raina won the toss for the third consecutive time in this series and opted, as usual, to bowl first. India made a few changes to their side bringing in Manoj Tiwary, Ishant Sharma and R Ashwin respectively for Shikhar Dhawan, Munaf Patel and Harbhajan Singh. West Indies, too, tweaked their squad with Anthony Martin coming in for Devendra Bishoo and Darren Bravo replacing Kirk Edwards.

The West Indies’ batting followed a path similar to their performance in the previous ODI. In the last game, they were 96 for seven with Lendl Simmons [45] putting in the only notable contribution at the top of the order before Andre Russell and Carlton Baugh took them to a respectable score of 225.Today, they collapsed to 103 for five with Lendl Simmons, once again, playing a lone hand right at the top with an innings of 67.

Then Kieron Pollard, with some handy support from Carlton Baugh, brought the hosts back into the game. Pollard, under criticism for having scored a mere six runs cumulatively in his previous two innings in this series, helped himself to a strokeful half-century while striking a 96-run partnership with Baugh off just 17.4 overs. He fell for an individual score of 70, caught at long-off by Ishant Sharma off R Ashwin. The hosts were 199 for six in 44.2 overs at the fall of Pollard’s wicket.

Andre Russell (25 off 14) and Baugh (39 off 57) then added 40 off just four overs to take West Indies to a score of 249 for eight in 50 overs.

For India, Praveen Kumar was the most successful bowler finishing with figures of three for 37. Amit Mishra took two for 56 in his 10 overs.

Brief score: West Indies249/8 in 50.0 overs (Kieron Pollard 70, Lendl Simmons 67, Praveen Kumar 3/37, Amit Mishra 2/56).