The Mumbai desk, Jun 28: The India A tour of West Indies saw yet another tight finish as the hosts edged the visitors by two wickets in the first one-day game of the three-match series being played between the two sides. The match, which went into the last over after the visitors posted a score of 190, was played at the National Cricket Stadium, St George’s, Grenada.

It was a below par batting performance by the visitors, who opted to bat first after captain Cheteshwar Pujara won the toss. Openers Ajinkya Rahane (58) and Shikhar Dhawan (30) were the only two Indian batsmen who were able to make their stay out in the middle count as the rest of the batting lineup struggled to cope with the visitors’ bowling attack. West Indies A skipper and left-arm orthodox bowler Veerasammy Permaul took four for 33 as India were bowled out for 190 in 50 overs. Pacemen Jason Holder and Jonathan Carter took two wickets each for the hosts.

Defending that total, Bhuvneshwar Kumar gave India A a couple of early breakthroughs, getting rid of the West Indies openers and reducing the hosts to 42 for two. Spinners Rahul Sharma and Rohit Sharma then took a wicket each to leave the contest evenly balanced as the visitors stumbled to 98 for four.

However, a spirited 54-run partnership between Jonathan Carter (39) and Assad Fudadin (26) for the fifth wicket, which saw the hosts go past the score of 150, put India A on the back-foot. Ashok Dinda tried to salvage the situation by grabbing three of the next four wickets as the West Indies middle-order collapsed from 152 for four to 158 for eight. But with Permaul (22*) and Nikita Miller (12*) defying the Indian bowling attack while remaining in control of the asking-rate, the hosts won the game with three deliveries to spare.

The second one-day game between the two sides will be played at the same venue on June 29.

Brief scores: India A 190/10 in 50 overs (Rahane 58, Permaul 4-33) lost toWest Indies A 193 for 8 in 49.3 overs (Carter 39, Permaul 22*, Dinda 3-45).

Man-of-the-match: Veerasammy Permaul for his all-round performance; 8-2-33-4 and an unbeaten 22