Super Sehwag guides India to huge win
History will remember this match for one man - Virender Sehwag! What an innings he played! A stunning 219 of 149 balls. One-day cricket's great knock ever.
For the record, India registered a series win over West Indies but history will remember this match for one man - Virender Sehwag. The 33-year old batsman scored a stunning 219 off just 149 balls. One-day cricket's biggest score ever.
Electing to bat, skipper Virender Sehwag added 176 runs for the opening wicket with Gautam Gambhir (67) and 140 for the next with Suresh Raina (55) to help India reach a mammoth score of 418/5 in 50 overs.
Nothing seemed to work for the West Indies as Gambhir and Sehwag piled on the runs. The Delhi openers tore apart the rival attack in fashion. Sehwag, who went into the game with scores of 20, 26 and 0, dominated the proceedings from the onset.
The West Indies skipper will have a sleepless night. Sehwag was on 170 when Sammy dropped a simple chance. Nobody in the stadium could believe he dropped that, but as Sehwag himself said, probably god was on his side. And what we witnessed after that was an innings of scintillating hitting.
All the frontline Windies bowlers leaked runs aplenty. Roach gave away 88 for a wicket while Rampaul, who had grabbed a four-wicket haul to bag man-of-the-match award at Ahmedabad, conceded 66 runs for a wicket.
The 200-run mark was always expected to be broken by this man; and he chose this day to break it. Poor West Indies!
Sehwag got to his hundred in only 69 balls with a four through point off pace bowler Kieron Pollard.
Sehwag's 15th ODI century was his first as captain and beat his previous highest score of 175 against Bangladesh at the 2011 World Cup.
And while cruising to this milestone, Sehwag broke Sachin Tendulkar's previous one-day mark of 200 not out against South Africa at Gwalior last year. Sehwag also completed 8,000 runs during the course of his innings.
Debutant Rahul Sharma was the pick of the bowlers from the Indian side, claiming 3/43 in 10 overs.
Though never at the sight of victory after the Sehwag massacre, Andre Russell hit some big hits but Ramdin gave the Windies score the much needed impetus to guide them to 265 in 49.2 overs.
Rahul Sharma and Ravindra Jadeja kept a tight check on the runs as West Indies lost wickets at regular intervals to hand India an emphatic 153-run win.