The first T20 in the three-match series against India ended in defeat for the West Indies. A commanding score of 207 whilst batting first set the game up rather well for the visitors, and captain Kieron Pollard would have been broadly happy with the way things were at halfway - his side was ahead on WinViz, with a 67% chance of victory, and he would have felt things were moving in their direction. An hour or so later, the Windies had fallen victims to another masterful chasing innings from the Indian skipper Virat Kohli, his 94 (50) seeing the hosts home with a remarkable eight balls remaining. For the West Indies, a strong position had turned into a defeat.

However, the main reason that the Windies got into such a good position in the first place was a fantastic innings from Evin Lewis. A spectacular 40 (17) from the opener got things off to a flying start, driving them to 63 runs in the Powerplay overs - only once, back in 2016, have a West Indian side taken more runs off India in the first six overs.

Lewis' innings was frenetic and brutal, but it had clear patterns in terms of the scoring areas. The majority of the runs came behind square on the legside, or through cover - a simple method which proved destructive. Lewis' contribution was ended by Washington Sundar, as the opener tried to sweep a straight one and was pinned, but at that stage, it looked like the platform was there for the other members of the batting line-up to capitalise on.

However, it invites questions of what this West Indies team need from Lewis. He is an experienced member of a relatively youthful side, a side with plenty of talent but not huge amounts of tournament experience. He has been playing T20 for seven years now - he should know his own game as well as he is ever going to. 52 times he has tried to sweep or slog sweep an off break bowler in a T20 match, and six times it has lead to his dismissal. That's one of the worst dismissal rates for any stroke he plays against that sort of bowling.

That's a vague criticism though, and it's understandable that in the heat of the moment when batting as well as he was, mistakes will be made. However, it points to an issue with Lewis' batting right now, which is his inability to go down through the gears in the middle overs. Over the last 12 months, he scores at 7.9rpo in the Powerplay, then 9.3rpo in the middle overs; he is dismissed once every 27 and 14 balls respectively, in those phases. His apparent difficulty in surviving longer after the Powerplay, in forging a more substantial contribution to the innings, is frustrating.

It may be that the Windies approach is to use Lewis as a pure hitter, to just go at 100mph from ball one, and to accept that this will limit his duration at the crease. That's reasonable. But on a selfish level, it must irk Lewis that he is not going on and making more decisive contributions more consistently.

Ultimately, the West Indies cannot beat themselves up too much. They performed admirably with the bat, regardless of the specifics and potential for improvement we have outlined here. The bowling throughout the second innings could have been better, for sure, but it was by no means the defining reason why those runs were chased down. That accolade goes to the Indian skipper, and all his now-familiar excellence. Sometimes you run into an unstoppable force, like Kohli at his best, and you have to accept to defeat; the challenge for this group of Windies batsmen is for one of them to reach that level, and Lewis is as likely as any.