The West Indies fast bowlers had a plan, and unlike the norm in Twenty20 cricket, keeping it in the right areas wasn’t a part of it. They weren’t out there to contain, they were out there to intimidate. They ran in hard, bowled fast and kept it short.

India’s batsmen, bullied and on to the back foot for the first time in a long time, managed to throw a few punches of their own as they reached 153 for eight in their 20 overs.

In the first over of the innings, Gautam Gambhir got a snorter from Jerome Taylor, one that would have hit him square in the face had his bat handle not come in the way. The ball looped just over an outstretched Dwayne Bravo’s fingers at second slip.

Next over, Fidel Edwards started off with a short one to Rohit Sharma, who pulled it to the mid-wicket fence. All of Lord’s, a sea of blue on Friday, rose as one as remixed bhangra blared from the loudspeakers. Next ball, another short one, was slightly quicker, bowled with a little more purpose. Rohit went for the pull again, but the top-edge went only as far as Simmons at square-leg.

Suresh Raina fell for the sucker punch, the good length ball outside off-stump. Stuck on the back-foot, he poked at it, and ‘keeper Denesh Ramdin took a good catch diving forward.

Like Kapil's catch

When Lendl Simmons ran back 25 yards from his position at square-leg to hold on to a skier off Gambhir’s bat — another bouncer, incidentally — talk immediately turned to another India-West Indies game played here at Lord’s 26 years ago, when Kapil Dev had held on to a similar stunner (and, some time later, the World Cup).

... contd.