Kingston, June 29: Skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni's defiant 95 went in vain as India suffered a humiliating eight-wicket defeat at the hands of an inspired West Indies in the second cricket one-dayer here on Sunday.
After dismissing the visitors for a modest 188 in 48.2 overs, the Caribbean team rode on openers Chris Gayle (64) and Runako Morton's (85) fabulous batting to overhaul the target in 34.1 overs and level the four match series 1-1.
Earlier, electing to bat first, Dhoni waged a lonely battle as India succumbed to a batting collapse against the West Indian pace attack led by pacer Ravi Rampaul.
Rampaul produced a career-best four-wicket haul and combined with Jerome Taylor (3/35) to rip through the top-order before joining hands with Dwayne Bravo (3/26) to get rid of the Indian lower half.
Chasing 189 to win, West Indies got off to a rollicking start with Gayle taking the Indian attack by the scruff of its neck and Morton playing initially the second fiddle.
Gayle looked dangerous as he punished the bowlers at will. Ashish Nehra faced his wrath in the eighth over when he clobbered the left-arm pacer out of the park and followed it up with a couple of boundaries to amass 16 runs.
Gayle also slog-sweeped Harbhajan Singh for a six in the 15th over to bring up the hundred before his blazing innings was brought to an end by a stunning catch by Gautam Ghambir at long off in the next over.
Ramnaresh Sarwan then added 15 runs before being deceived by Rohit Sharma as Dhoni completed an easy stumping.
However, Morton chugged along nicely and Shivnarine Chanderpaul (18) made sure there were no more hiccups as West Indies cruised to 192 for two.
Earlier, Dhoni struck six boundaries and a couple of sixes in his innings and stitched together a record 101-run partnership for the ninth wicket with RP Singh to lead India's recovery after they were reduced to 82 for eight in 22 overs.
Dhoni's decision to bat first backfired as India lost half their side inside 15 overs with three batsmen departing for a duck.
The visitors made a pathetic start losing Dinesh Karthik (4), Gautam Gambhir (0) and Rohit Sharma (0) to be left tottering at eight for three in 1.4 overs.
Playing his first match in the tournament, pacer Ravi Rampaul struck twice in his opening over but it was his partner Jerome Taylor who drew first blood removing Karthik with the fifth ball of the innings.
Karthik's outside edge found Ramdin, while a lame poke at an outside delivery brought Gambhir's demise. Rohit also followed suit when his edge flew to Ramdin, who popped it to Runako Morton at second slip.
Yuvraj Singh (35) and Dhoni then steadied the ship scored mostly through singles and twos to take India past fifty in 11 overs.
Yuvraj played some scintillating shots, which included five boundaries and a six off Rampaul in the 10th over, before falling prey to Taylor two overs later.
With India on the backfoot, Skipper Chris Gayle decided to take the fielding powerplay after 10 overs and it paid off straight away as West Indies scalped two wickets giving away just 11 runs to reduce India to 57-5 in 14.2 overs.
After Yuvraj was sent packing, new man in Yousuf Pathan (0) didn't last long either and was done in by a short-pitch delivery by Dwayne Bravo.
Ravinder Jadeja (7) also gave catching practice to Denesh Ramdin off Rampaul, while Harbhajan Singh (7) edged one from Bravo. Praveen Kumar (1) was also back in the hut after some time as India reeled at 82 for eight in 22 overs.
Running short of partners, Dhoni decided to take the third powerplay after the 22nd over and along with RP Singh crossed the hundred mark in 27 overs en route to their record partnership.
Singh (23) departed in the 48th over to put an end to the partnership, while Dhoni too fell five runs short of a well-deserving century when his furniture was rocked by a slower delivery from Taylor in the 49th over.
Dhoni said his batsmen failed to gauge the wicket and didn't give enough respect to the rival bowlers.
"We should have paid a little more respect to the bowlers. The wicket was a bit difficult, it was swinging around a bit. We didn't judge the wicket well and just went around playing our strokes which really brought our downfall," Dhoni said after the match.
"Once you lose too many wickets then the only thing that you are doing is catching up. RP (Singh) and me had a partnership otherwise it would have been quite embarrassing," he added.
Dhoni forged a record 101-run partnership for the ninth wicket with Singh to stage India's recovery after they were reduced to 82-8 in 22 overs.
Dhoni said India could have put up a good total if they had got off to a better start as the wicket became favourable for batting later on.
"Later on, the wicket became better for batting. When you are batting first, initially you expect the wicket to do a bit and it is the first half an hour and after that you can capitalise if you get up a good start," he said.
Talking about Yuvraj Singh, who hit 35 yesterday, Dhoni said, "Yuvraj is the man in-form, he is getting the runs for us but we can't expect one individual to score in every game."
Well aware that the modest total was nearly impossible to defend, Dhoni said he just tried to make life difficult for the rival batsmen.
"You can't expect to bowl the opponent out within 180, especially on a wicket like this. We just wanted to make it difficult. As long as we can stay on the wicket and make it difficult for them to score runs, that was the motivation," he said.
Meanwhile, West Indies skipper Chris Gayle lauded his bowlers Ravi Rampaul and Jerome Taylor for setting up the win for them.
"It is nice to square the series. There were some good performances from the guys. Rampaul and Taylor set the game for us and from now we will look to go strength to strength," he said.
"There was moisture in the wicket and Taylor and Ravi utilised it well, and the catching was also good, so we just need to keep working on our game.
Gayle also lavished praise on Dhoni and RP Singh for their batting.
"Credit goes to Dhoni and RP, they batted really well. We couldn't get that particular wicket at that time but we were confident that we can chase the total in the end," he said.
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