Iyer's 102 off 43 balls takes India past West Indies with 32 balls left

Shreyas Iyer made a maiden Twenty20 international hundred and India beat West Indies by eight wickets in the first match of the series, at Lucknow on Tuesday. West Indies were bowled out for 171 in 19.1 overs. India reached 172 for 2 in 14.4 overs, with 32 balls left. Iyer finished 102 not out off 43 balls, with 10 fours and six sixes, and took the player-of-the-match award.

He reached the hundred in 42 balls, which AP tied for the sixth-fastest century by an India batter in the format. The fifty had come off 28 balls, with eight fours. The next fifty took 14 balls and included the six sixes. At the start of the 14th over he was 72 not out off 36. He hit Matthew Forde for two sixes, was dropped at long-on on the third ball, and hit two more sixes to bring up the hundred. Cricinfo counted 57 of his runs in the last phase of the chase, and six sixes in an 18-ball burst.

Ishan Kishan stayed with him. The two added 137 off 67 balls for the third wicket, and Kishan was 37 not out at the end. Sanju Samson had gone for 11. India were 62 for 2 in the powerplay and 102 for 2 at the halfway mark of their innings, when the target was 172. At that point Iyer was 45 off 25 and Kishan 25 off 16, and the requirement was 70 off 10 overs. The chase looked measured. Then it was not.

West Indies had got to 171 because of two half-centuries from a poor position. Shai Hope made 52 and Sherfane Rutherford 56, and the pair pulled the innings up from 135 for 8. It was still a light total against the reigning T20 world champions. India's three spinners took eight wickets between them. Axar Patel opened the damage with a double-wicket maiden that ended the powerplay, and finished with 2 for 26. Kuldeep Yadav came back from an expensive over to take two. The figure that will be quoted in the selection meeting is Naman Dhir's. On T20I debut he took 3 for 31 from four overs, and three times answered a six with a wicket on a later ball of the same spell.

The win extended India's T20I winning run to 10. The series is five matches. West Indies arrived after India's side had come back from the Asian Games with a men's T20 gold, a detail Dawn noted in its report of the Lucknow game. The home side is not the Test squad. It is the white-ball group built around Iyer as captain for this tour, with Kishan keeping and the spin trio of Axar, Kuldeep and a debutant who bowls the cutters Dhir bowled on Tuesday.

Iyer's hundred is his first in T20 internationals. He has had a stop-start run in the format for India, in and out of squads as the management preferred other middle-order options. A 43-ball hundred, as captain, in the first game of a home series, changes the conversation for the next four matches and for the auction and contract cycle that follows. He did it on a pitch that also helped the spinners. The batter's job was to keep the required rate from climbing while the spinners had already done the larger share of the work with the ball.

Forde's 14th over is the passage the replay will keep. A drop at long-on, two sixes before it, two after it, and a maiden hundred completed against a bowler who had looked, for one ball, as if he might stop it. West Indies had no second chance. The target was too small, and the partnership too fast, for a fight once Iyer had cleared the rope four times in that over.

The remaining matches will show whether 171 was a one-off or a pattern. If India's spinners keep taking eight wickets in an innings, West Indies need a higher platform than Hope and Rutherford gave them from 135 for 8. If Iyer keeps scoring at the rate of his second fifty, the chase will again be over inside 15 overs. Lucknow was the first data point. The series has four games left to test it.