Hope 162* beats Rahul 129* as West Indies pull off record chase

(Cricinfo) – Shai Hope spent the entirety of this seemingly never-ending match on the field, hobbling for the last third of his innings after having kept for 50 overs, and sealed West Indies’ highest-successful chase in ODIs days after they experienced the agony of losing despite scoring 405.

That West Indies chased down 352 with remarkable ease despite losing one of only five specialist batters to injury even before Hope started to struggle leaves us with a tantalising “what if”. Not to mention a controversial decision against Sherfane Rutherford, which necessitated an excellent innings of 44 from Keemo Paul, batting in the top five for the first time in ODIs.

This was the only time West Indies got to chase in this series, and the chase-friendliness of the conditions in New Chandigarh were even more stark. After the first 10 overs of the match yielded 28 for 2, with India deciding to challenge themselves by batting first after winning their third toss, the rest of the match produced 675 runs at 7.64 per over. Despite all the batting records India posted, including KL Rahul’s personal best in this ODI, their bowling in the absence of Jasprit Bumrah and Hardik Pandya will give them little confidence less than a year before the World Cup. What if they hadn’t won all the tosses and West Indies had got to chase sooner in the series?