In a frustratingly stop-and-start affair with several rain interruptions, West Indies, fuelled by a frenetic start by Chris Gayle and powered by Ramnaresh Sarwan's 62, reached 185 for 7 at the end of their allotted 27 overs. With Duckworth-Lewis coming into the picture, India's target was revised to 195.
Dhoni won a crucial toss and made the obvious decision to bowl as no one knew how many overs the team batting first will get to play on a rainy day at St Lucia. Gayle started like a runaway train, putting immense pressure on Ishant Sharma and Ashish Nehra. It made perfect sense as Ishant was coming back after being dropped in the previous game and is in midst of an indifferent run in the limited-overs cricket. An under-pressure Ishant erred on both extremes in his length and Gayle carved and slashed away merrily. Time and again, Gayle thrust his back foot back and across, opened his stance and depending on the line, hit to the on or off side. The stand-out shot, though, was when he disregarded the line and swat-pulled an Ishant delivery from well outside off to deep midwicket.
