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 After a sublime performance in the previous match, India swung to the other extreme and produced a
lack lustre display as they crashed to a seven-wicket defeat in the fourth
one -day international against West Indies here yesterday.
In a match reduced to 25-overs a side, after rains washed out half the day’s play, India could manage just 123 runs and were all out off the last ball of their quota of overs. West Indies raced to 117 without loss,
seven runs within victory, before three quick wickets brought a bit of drama into the game.
But the task was duly completed in the 23rd over, the winning runs coming off a wide from Virender Sehwag. The hero of West Indies victory was opener Chris Gayle who smashed 84 runs off just 67 balls with nine fours and a six.
The win saw West Indies levelling the rain-truncated five-match series at 1-1. India had won the third one-dayer at Bridgetown by seven wickets after the first two matches at Jamaica were washed out. The fifth match will be played here later today.
It was a disappointing batting performance that let the Indians down in yesterday's game. Skipper Sourav Ganguly had decided to bat first after winning the toss in the morning before it started raining. But the decision proved disastrous in a shortened innings as most of the batsmen perished while trying to go for the big hits.
Indian batsmen went for over-ambitious shots without settling down and paid the price. Only Ganguly and his deputy, Rahul Dravid, showed some application and scored 39 and 28 runs respectively.
The slide started right in the first over of the innings with opener Virender Sehwag giving a simple catch to Brian Lara at mid-on while trying to go over the top off the very first ball he faced.
Ganguly and Dinesh Mongia, man of the match in India’s seven-wicket triumph in the third one-dayer in Barbados, put on 45 for the second wicket which turned out to be the highest of the innings.
 Ganguly played some good shots, the pick of them being a six over covers off Cameron Cuffy who was the most expensive of the West Indian bowlers, conceding 40 runs in his five overs while claiming the wicket of
Mongia. Once Mongia left, clean bowled off a full toss from Cuffy after making 13 runs, wickets tumbled at regular intervals and India were in danger of being shot out inside their quota of
overs.
The batsmen failed to learn from the mistakes of others and none of them made an effort to stay at the wicket and anchor the side.
V V S Laxman (2), coming into the side for an injured Sachin Tendulkar, and Yuvraj Singh (1) fell cheaply and India were four down for 56.
When Ganguly too was dismissed, trapped leg before wicket by Corey Collymore, India were in deep trouble at 65 for five in the 13th over. Ganguly's 44-ball knock contained five fours and a six.
Collymore struck twice in his fourth over to send back Mohd Kaif (12) and Ajit Agarkar (0), reducing India to 86 for seven.
Dravid and Zaheer Khan were associated in a small 24-run partnership for the eighth wicket. Dravid hit Cuffy for a six over long-off before being clean bowled by Carl Hooper off the last ball of the 22nd over.
Hooper bowled Zaheer Khan (7) off the first ball of his next over to be on hat-trick which however was denied by Tinu Yohannan. Yohannan remained unbeaten on two. Harbhajan Singh was caught behind by Ridley Jacobs off the last ball of the innings from Pedro Collins who finished with figures of two for 21.
Collymore was the most successful of the West Indian bowlers claiming three wickets for 14 runs from his quota of five
overs. The West Indian innings was in stark contrast with the openers scoring fluently. Gayle was particularly aggressive, and in the seventh over of the innings, he hit Yohannan for 25 runs including one six and four fours.
Two overs later, he picked two consecutive boundaries in the third man region off Agarkar to bring up his half- century. His partner Wavell Hinds was reduced to being a spectator though he too looked attractive in his 30-run knock with two fours and a six.
The openers brought West Indies within seven runs of victory in the 17th over before India claimed three quick wickets.
Yohannan, who was taken for 50 runs in his five runs, clean bowled an advancing Hinds and then uprooted the stumps of Ramnaresh Sarwan (1) in his next over. In between Zaheer Khan had Gayle caught by Ganguly by square leg.
But besides bringing in artificial excitement, the wickets hardly had any effect on the match as West Indies completed the formality without much problems thereafter.
Earlier, both teams observed a two-minute silence to pay their tributes to legendary leg-spinner Subhash Gupte and former South African captain Hansie Cronje. Gupte died on Thursday night in his adopted home in Trinidad while Cronje was killed in a plane crash near the South African town of George yesterday. The Indian team wore black bands in mourning.
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