London: A five-wicket haul by Ravindra Jadeja followed by a brilliant century by Shikhar Dhawan helped India beat West Indies by eight wickets and in the ICC Champions Trophy here on Tuesday. The win has also ensured India a semi-final berth in the tournament.
Chasing a mediocre total of 234 to win, Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan added 101 runs for the opening wicket in just 15.3 overs which put India in the driver's seat. Though India lost Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli to Sunil Narine in quick succession, Karthik, who joined Dhawan, added 109 runs for the fourth wicket which handed over India the victory in the 40th over. Dhawan smashed 102 run off 107 balls which was studded with 10 fours and one six. Karthik scored eight fours in the 51 runs that he scored off 54 balls.
Earlier in the contest, it was Bhuvneshwar Kumar who got better off Chris Gayle, who departed after scoring 21 runs. West Indies were looking down and out at the score of 1/33 after eight overs but Johnson Charles took the charge and steered his side to 102/1 after 19th over.
But Jadeja got the wicket of Charles in his second over which turned out to be a turning point of this match. He turned out to be a trumpcard for MS Dhoni as he picked up two more wickets in his next couple of overs and sent back Marlon Samuels and Ramnaresh Sarwan to the pavilion, which reduced Windies to 4/109.
Darren Bravo and Dwayne Smith knitted a partnership of 31 runs after which Darren was undone by Ravi Ashwin, who was looking simply magical with the ball. He scored 35 runs off 83 balls in his close to two hours stay at the crease. Dwayne Bravo and Keiron Pollard played some mistimed shots which went straight into the hands of fielders which put Windies on back-foot.
However, Darren Sammy smashed five fours and four sixes to score 56 runs off just 35 balls and took them to 233. Bhuvneshwar ended up with the figures of 1/32 whereas Ashwin too a wicket for 36 runs. Ishant kept the pressure throughout his spells and bagged the wicket of Pollard at a crucial time.