Ind-WI ODI 1 Half Time: India Hold The Aces After Yuvi Blitz, Karthik's Steadiness

The recipe was virtually set for disaster. With Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar missing, the beleaguered Indian team, who flopped at the ICC World Twenty20 in England, were faced with playing out an ODI with a third of their team indisposed. However, it is took one man’s brilliance and another man’s common sense, to give India a real chance for victory.
It was the partnership between Dinesh Karthik who opened the innings and Yuvraj Singh that set the tone for India’s riposte after West Indies were responsible for sending India out in the Super Eights first.
The partnership moved from one of consolidation to one of sheer authority in which the opposition was nearly batted out of the match. Yuvraj played cautiously for his half century but his twelfth ODI century was thereafter a trailblazer that sent India’s score skyrocketing.
Karthik played steadily for his half century, included in the team only after injuries have rendered a depleted squad to the Caribbean. The final flourish came in the form of the belligerent Yusuf Pathan in the company of an equally rebellious Harbhajan Singh but before that was Yuvraj Singh’s crucial partnership with captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni himself who made forty.
Yuvraj’s 131 off just 102 balls was the pivot in the turning point of the match which was clearly the 135 run partnership between Karthik and Yuvi.
West Indies were already denied the services of Fidel Edwards in the first ODI at Sabina Park, Jamaica. But Jerome Taylor rose to the task, until Yuvraj Singh decided to use the third and final Power play to destructive effect.
The consolidated effect of the Indian playing eleven meant that the West Indies, on a high after making the semi finals in England, were forced to accept that they would be chasing 334 to stop India from exorcising their demons.