India unleash batting power in impressive Cup display

India hammered out an eight-wicket warning to the West Indies, and to all other Super League sides, that they do not intend to relinquish their hold on the ICC Under-19 World Cup easily.

It is difficult to imagine a more impressive victory than that achieved by an Indian side fully focused in all areas of its game at Bert Sutcliffe Oval at Lincoln University near Christchurch today.

They bowled first after winning the toss and so tied the West Indians down that it was going to take an almighty bowling performance to deny India.

As it turned out the bowling never came into it. India just treated the West Indians with contempt in a breath-taking display of hitting that reached its climax when opener Maninder Bisla hit West Indian fast bowler Ryan Nurse over the midwicket boundary for six to take India past their requirement of 156, off only 28 overs.

Indian captain Parthiv Patel said he felt from the outset that the pitch was worth 230-250 runs.

"It was a good wicket. We knew they had a good pace attack but we played good cricket. Our bowlers did well to contain them to 155 and then we batted well.

"I just played my natural cricket," Patel said of his own whirlwind innings at the top of the order in which he scored 47 off 34 balls.

Bisla was unbeaten at the end scoring his 68 not out off 80 balls.

When Patel was dismissed in the 11th over, the score was already 79.

It was a nightmare for West Indian captain Narsingh Deonarine who had his battle plan for defending the total blown right out of the water with the intensity of the opening assault.

Gavin Tonge had to be relieved at the bowling crease after his first two overs went for 19 and while Deonarine replaced Nurse himself, his over went for 13, so another change was forced.

The Indians knew the West Indians would use the speed and bounce of their pace attack to intimidate the smaller Indian players, but it was a tactic of no merit. The sheer class of the Indian batsmen dominated.

The West Indians got into strife almost from the outset of the game when losing opening batsman Dwayne Bravo in the third over. The scoring was slow through the early stages of the innings as the Indian bowlers managed to get the ball too swing enough to restrict the choices for the West Indians.

More than anything else it was the failure to build partnerships that hit their batting, although the self-inflicted run out of Lendl Simmons did not help either. He looked the best of the top order in scoring 38 but having done all the hard work he was out at exactly the wrong moment, halfway through the innings, the stage when he should have been looking to build a high score.

Instead, it was left to Lorenzo Ingram, who scored 43 while marshalling the lower order, to get the West Indies towards the 150 mark.

He was out too, at the wrong time, the 45th over and the ninth man out, when stumped off Abhishek Sharma's bowling. Sharma had good reward for tight bowling, taking two for 28 from his 10 overs. Gnaneswara Rao was the seventh bowler preferred but that didn't deter him and he finished with two for eight.

Opener Siddharth Trivedi bowled very well to concede 25 off his nine overs and take one wicket.

The West Indian bowlers struggled by comparison. Darren Sammy tried to slow down the inevitable while only 21 were hit from his six overs. The insistence on trying to have Nurse blast his way through the Indian batting resulted in him seeing 54 hit from his 7.3 overs.

The West Indies are not out of the Cup yet but they face a significant task to turn their game around. It was a long time after the match before they appeared from their dressing room.

India, by comparison, have had the perfect entrée to their main course, and some entertaining cricket lies ahead as teams compete to make the semi-finals.