On December 18, 2019, in the second of three ODIs between India and West Indies that was played at Viskhapatnam, India dominated proceedings to win the game by 107 runs.
Kuldeep Yadav’s hat-trick and Rohit Sharma’s 159 were some of the highlights of the match, which saw a number of records take place.
Skippers Virat Kohli and Kieron Pollard got themselves an unwanted record. Kohli was out for a duck off his first ball, caught by Roston Chase off the bowling of Pollard. Pollard too went for a first-ball duck, caught by Rishabh Pant off the bowling of Mohammad Shami. This is the first time ever in ODI cricket when both captains have been dismissed for a golden duck (first-ball zero) in the same match.
In the 33rd over of West Indies’ innings, Kuldeep Yadav took a hat-trick, his second ODIs.
After having opener Shai Hope caught by Virat Kohli for 78 in the fourth ball of the over, he then had Jason Holder stumped off the next ball. He completed his hat-trick by dismissing Alzarri Joseph off the last ball of the over, caught by Kedar Jadhav. Kuldeep became the first Indian to take two ODI hat-tricks and in fact the first Indian to take multiple hat-tricks in international matches. He is the sixth player to have multiple ODI hat-tricks.
While Lasith Malinga has there, Wasim Akram, Saqlain Mushtaq, Chaminda Vaas and Trent Boult have two as well.
Rohit Sharma has made the highest individual score for India in ODIs in each of the last seven calendar years.
Rohit’s 159 was his seventh ODI hundred in 2019. Only four players have ever scored seven or more hundreds in the same calendar year. While Sachin Tendulkar heads the list with nine centuries in 1998, Sourav Ganguly (2000) and David Warner (2016) have also notched up seven centuries in a year.
Shreyas Iyer and Rishabh Pant were part of the most productive over ever in India’s ODI history as they plundered 31 runs in the 47th over the innings, bowled by Roston Chase.
Iyer did the bulk of the damage as he hit 28 runs, while Pant scored a single. There were extras too in the over, to add insult to injury.
Picture Credit : Google