Determined West Indies ease to consolation win

West Indies 249 for 8 (Pollard 70, Simmons 67, Baugh 39, Praveen 3-37) beat India 146 (Martin 4-36, Russell 3-16) by 103 runs

	Kieron Pollard played one of his better international innings© Associated Press

Finally West Indies managed to put together the kind of cluster of performances they have been missing, and hence losing matches - often from positions from where they could have won. Today, though, they didn't relent despite a poor start, and registered a welcome win albeit after the series was lost. Lendl Simmons got his sixth fifty in his last eight innings,Kieron Pollard notched up his personal best against a Test-playing nation, Carlton Baugh again played the support role before taking the lead behind the stumps, Andre Russell smacked 25 off 14 before unsettling India with his bouncers, and Darren Sammy andAnthony Martin backed up expertly with their bowling, scalping six under-pressure batsmen between them.

Smart Stats The 103-run win is West Indies' third-highest margin ofvictory over India in ODIs. The highest is the 135-run win in Vijayawada in 2002. The 146 is India's sixth-lowest score against West Indies overall and their second lowest in the West Indies. India's 146 is their fifth-lowest score in ODIs since the beginning of 2008. Their lowest in the same period is 88 against Sri Lanka in Dambulla in 2008. The 96-run stand between Carlton Baugh and Kieron Pollard is the second-highest for the sixth wicket for West Indies in ODIs against India after the 118-run stand between Ricardo Powell and Nehemiah Perry in Singapore in 1999. Pollard's 70 is his fourth half-century and second-highest score in ODIs. His highest is the 94 against Ireland in the 2011 World Cup. Anthony Martin's 4 for 36 is fourth on the list of best bowling performances by a West Indies bowler againstIndia in ODIs since 2005. In the same period, Ravi Rampaul's 5 for 51 in Chennai is the best.

It was never going to be an easy win. Not with Praveen Kumar and Amit Mishra in the kind of form they've been in. The two bowled six maiden overs and took five wickets between them to undo Simmons' good work. Simmons brought West Indies back from 41 for 2 through a counter-attack on the returning Ishant Sharma and on the dominant Mishra. However, he saw his partner in recovery, Darren Bravo, pick out one of three fielders on the leg-side boundary to send West Indies into a tailspin that stopped with Simmons' run-out to make it 103 for 5 in the 27th over.

This was Simmons' ninth innings out of 27 that ended between 40 and 77, a trend that flatters and then deceives. However, another flatterer-and-deceiver forgot the deceiving part today. Pollard played one of his more responsible international innings to pull West Indies out of trouble.

After an edgy start, Pollard showed much better discretion and cricketing sense. Hitting Manoj Tiwary for a straight six and a four in the 32nd over, he reached 19 off 19, and started working the singles. Baugh reciprocated just like he had done with Russell two days ago. There was a moment when Baugh should have been run out for 17, running casually with his bat in the air, but the umpire chose not to look at the replays. That was not the first mistake Norman Malcolm made, nor was it the last. His lbw call against Marlon Samuels was dodgy, as were a couple of wides, and he would go on to deny India another run-out in the last over of the innings.

Pollard, meanwhile, was making all the right decisions. The big shots and the singles were mixed well. There was also a deft late-cut, and the big hits were aimed only down the ground. Nor was there any urge to hit every delivery into the stands. He went after Mishra only when he bowled flat. He contributed 64 to the 96-run stand. Having put India under pressure, Pollard holed out in the first over of the batting Powerplay that begun in the 44th over.

That didn't stall the momentum, though, as Russell continued with his clean big striking, hitting three fours and a six to help West Indies get 57 in the Powerplay. Having reached their best score of the season, West Indies were aggressive in defence. The pitch wasn't as slow as the ones in the earlier matches, and Kemar Roach and Russell didn't bother about keeping some in the tank. They went all out against the inexperienced top order, and Sammy was canny from the other end.

India's slide began with Tiwary, who was jetlagged on debut when his stumps were clattered by Brett Lee and was now playing his comeback match as an opener, a role he is not accustomed to. It showed as he struggled against the moving ball. Nerves were on display too. He almost ran himself out and was dropped off Roach before finally edging Sammy. Parthiv Patel pulled, flicked and upper-cut well in scoring 26 of the 41 runs that came while he was at the crease. Sammy, though, got rid of him with a smart one-handed return catch to his left.

S Badrinath was then pinged by Russell's bouncers. There was an air of helplessness in the way he moved about the crease, trying to get out of the way, looking for the upper-cut. The struggle finally ended when he gloved a hook and was quick in rushing off the field.

Martin, who is a firefighter in Antigua, then came on to give his full-time job a bad name. Here were India facing the heat, and the fireman stoked the fire by scalping India's best batsman, Virat Kohli, in his first over and the innings' 21st. Baugh, who had taken an overhead catch behind his body to send Badrinath back, now finished a flashy stumping as Kohli overbalanced for a split-second. Under pressure, Suresh Raina looked for release, but slogged Martin straight to midwicket to make it 111 for 5.

Yusuf Pathan soon did something similar to Simmons, but there was still one man West Indies needed to see the back of. Rohit Sharma had denied them on two previous occasions in this series, but this time he top-edged a slog-sweep off Martin after having looked good for 39 off 47. Game over. © ESPN EMEA Ltd.

Innings Dot balls 4s 6s PP1 PP2 PP3 Last 10 overs NB/Wides West Indies 191 17 6 38/2 27/0 57/1 85/3 3/8 India 134 5 1 42/2 13/0 3/2 - 0/2

Pollard and Smith power Windies to victory

West Indies 275 (Smith 107, Pollard 94, O'Brien 4-71) beat Ireland 231 (Joyce 84, Wilson 61, Sammy 3-31, Benn 4-53) by 44 runs

	Kieron Pollard smashed 94 off 55 deliveries to transform the game © AFP

West Indies opener Devon Smith made a maiden century but his effort was overshadowed by Kieron Pollard, who bludgeoned a limited Ireland attack all around Mohali to muscle his side to a tall total. Pollard's effort helped to quell the criticism over his lack of performances at the international level, and gave West Indies their third win in four matches, putting them in prime position for a quarter-final spot.

A fluent Ed Joyce steered Ireland's sprightly reply but they lacked the spark needed to chase down the substantial score, though for the fourth match in a row they showed they aren't out of their depth against top teams. They kept fighting even when hopes of a victory were lost, reducing the margin of defeat to 44 runs and ensuring that their net run-rate didn't take too big a hit.

The decision to replace the injured Chris Gayle with bowling allrounder Andre Russell meant West Indies had a long tail, and no batsman of note below No. 5. That meant Ireland would have been the happier side when West Indies crawled to 142 for 3 by the 35th over. The batsmen gambled by taking the batting Powerplay then; a wicket at that stage could have scuppered the innings, but Ireland couldn't make the vital breakthrough and were helpless as the power of Pollard helped ransack 55 runs in five overs to shift the balance of the game.

Ireland had two opportunities to remove Pollard in the Powerplay: John Mooney narrowly missed a direct hit from square leg when Pollard had given up hope of making his ground in the 37th over, and Gary Wilson shelled a catch at long-on after hurtling across to get to a skier in the next over.

Over the next 45 minutes Pollard made them regret those misses with his now familiar brand of hitting, mainly muscling boundaries in the arc between long-on and midwicket. Boyd Rankin, Ireland's quickest, was brought in to handcuff Pollard, but his short ball was walloped to midwicket and an attempted yorker was pummeled down the ground. Rankin was rattled by the ferocity of the second hit, muttering to himself as his fractional mistake was punished.

A drive to midwicket in the 42nd over brought up Pollard's half-century off 35 balls - he celebrated by kissing an arm band bearing the injured allrounder Dwayne Bravo's number - but he was just warming up. The wickets tumbled at the other end, but there was no stopping Pollard, who capped a frenzy of hitting with 20 runs of an O'Brien over, which included a monstrous one-handed six that easily sailed over deep midwicket.

O'Brien had taken four wickets for the first time in his one-day career, but the Pollard assault ruined his figures. Pollard was also in line for the second quickest World Cup hundred -after O'Brien's epic against England last month - but fell attempting a six over long-off.

The pyrotechnics at the end made up for a dull start to the match in front of a nearly empty stadium when the West Indies openers treated the dibbly-dobbly attack with undue caution. There were only six fours in the first 15 overs on a track that, despite plenty of grass, afforded little movement for the seamers.

West Indies were dawdling at 3.5 runs per over when O'Brien struck in the 25th, getting Chanderpaul first, and Darren Bravo for a duck three balls later. Smith persevered and he stepped up his strike-rate in the Powerplay with a series of fours, reaching his hundred in the 39th over. It didn't thrill the watchers, but for a side which has only managed four centuries in their last 28 matches, it was an important innings.

Soon after, Kevin O'Brien struck twice in an over for the second time, though that didn't stop the runs. Puzzlingly, Ireland used their best bowler, left-arm spinner George Dockrell, for only three overs.

Ireland's chase got off to a terrible start as Paul Stirling's poor World Cup continued, dismissed in the second over. Joyce walked in and caressed his first two deliveries for four and Ireland sprinted to 35 for 0 in five, before Darren Sammy reeled off three maidens in a row and, combining with the pacy and accurate debutant Russell, created the pressure that led to William Porterfield's dismissal.

Joyce and Niall O'Brien steadied Ireland, adding 44 trouble-free runs before Niall played down the wrong line to Sulieman Benn. Joyce and Wilson then forged the biggest partnership of the innings to keep Ireland afloat, but just as Wilson picked up the pace with a huge six and two reverse-swept fours, Joyce was dismissed. Kevin O'Brien fell to a spectacular diving catch from Pollard and with that Ireland's hopes were washed away.

A controversial lbw decision by umpire Asoka de Silva, which wasn't reversed on referral, ended Wilson's stay in the 42nd over, but by then Ireland were hurtling towards their third defeat, and now need two wins to qualify for the next stage. © ESPN EMEA Ltd.

Rain ruins contest after Barath's maiden ton

Match abandoned West Indies 245 for 5 (Barath 113, Sarwan 75, Malinga 3-51) v Sri Lanka

Kumar Sangakkara congratulates Adrian Barath on his first one-day hundred © AFP

The rescheduled one-day leg of West Indies' tour of Sri Lanka got off to a futile start as heavy rain in Colombo forced the abandonment of the first ODI at the SSC. The series had been postponed from December because bad weather had ruined the Test series but the move has had little effect.

Before it began to rain during the lunch break, Adrian Barath scored his maiden ODI century and his partnership with Ramnaresh Sarwan drove West Indies to a competitive total. Their efforts at posting a strong score, however, were undone by lack of contributions from their team-mates and Lasith Malinga's death-over burst, which weakened the platform that had been laid for the acceleration.

The overcast day in Colombo began badly for West Indies when Chris Gayle nicked Nuwan Kulasekara's outswinger in the fourth over, depriving the innings of a potentially rapid start on a placid pitch. Barath and Darren Bravo consolidated and saw off the new ball without further damage. Their partnership was promising when a mix-up ended with Bravo being run out for 8, leaving West Indies 42 for 2. Bravo had backed up too far at the non-striker's end and failed to beat Kapugedera's return from midwicket at the bowler's end.

Sarwan, who was making a comeback to the team after being omitted from the original tour party to Sri Lanka last year, had a point to prove and he did it in some style. Barath and Sarwan steadied the innings, scoring at a healthy pace and rendering Muttiah Muralitharan wicketless during his ten-over spell. Barath was lucky to be let off on 54, when he played uppishly to an Ajantha Mendis delivery and Mahela Jayawardene managed to get his hand to the ball but could not catch it. Otherwise his innings was without blemish. He struck two sixes and eight fours during his 113 off 129 balls, while Sarwan took 100 deliveries to score 75.

West Indies took the batting Powerplay in the 44th over and the recent international trend of wickets falling during the fielding restrictions continued. Both Barath and Sarwan fell to Malinga in the first over of the Powerplay and Kieron Pollard followed soon. Malinga had both well-set batsmen caught at wide long-on by Chamara Kapugedera as they tried to take him on, and bowled Kieron Pollard with a well-disguised, slow inswinger. He had ripped out three wickets for three runs off eight balls and West Indies managed only 27 off the Powerplay.

It was left to Darren Sammy to strike a couple of boundaries and provide the late momentum. The weather, however, wiped out any possibility of play after lunch, frustrating both teams. -ESPNcricinfo

Mumbai Indians retain Sachin Tendulkar

Speculations over master blaster Sachin Tendulkar’s retainership in the Mumbai Indians have been ended.

In pic: Mumbai Indians captain Sachin Tendulkar

The last year runner-up IPL franchise Mumbai Indians have retained the Indian Batting Maestro Sachin Tendulkar along with Harbhajan Singh, Kieron Pollard and Lasith Malinga.

Sachin Tendulkar was the Orange Cap owner with maximum 615 runs in the IPL-3.

Caribbean all-rounder Pollard will be favourite for all but his availability during the IPL 4 is under clouds.

The auction of players for the IPL season four will be held on January 8-9, 2011.

On the other hand, Royal Challengers Bangalore have retained in-form Virat Kohli for the IPL4.