Kohli ton, Shami seal 3-1 series win

Jamaica: India won the fifth and final ODI against West Indies by 8 wickets courtesy of an unbeaten 111 by skipper Virat Kohli.

This was Kohli’s 28th ODI hundred.

Incidentally, with this ton, Kohli went past Sachin Tendulkar’s record of most number of centuries (17) while chasing in ODI cricket.

For his efforts with the bat in the final ODI Virat Kohli received the Man of the Match award, while Ajinkya Rahane was awarded the Man of the Series award.

Earlier, on a dry looking surface at the Sabina Park West Indies skipper, Jason Holder, after winning the toss elected to bat first.

However, it did not prove to be a fruitful decision for the Windies as their innings folded up for a paltry 205 at the end of 50 overs.

Wicketkeeper Shai Hope top scored with 51 while the others failed to give him enough support.

After choosing to bat the West Indies began cautiously and at one point were looking stead with the scoreboard on 76/1. But from there on they kept losing wickets at regular intervals.

While Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav and Kedar Jadhav put a check on the run-rate, Mohammed Shami and Umesh Yadav picked the majority of the wickets.

In their spells of ten overs, each Shami picked up four wickets while Yadav knocked out three Windies batsmen.

After the debacle in the last match, India would have been wary while coming out to chase.

Loosing Shikhar Dhawan early did not help either. But Rahane and Kohli steadied the ship with a good partnership.

Unlike the last game, they also kept the scoreboard ticking. Ultimately some sound batting by Ajinkya Rahane, Dinesh Karthik and Virat Kohli saw India sail towards a comfortable win.

Brief scores
West Indies - 205 for 9 (S Hope 51, K Hope 46, Shami 4-48, Umesh 3-53)
India - 206 for 2 (Kohli 111*, Karthik 50*)
Result - India won by 8 wickets