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Friday, July 18, 2025

India make West Indies toil again

by

20160801

A Test match can be a bit like a pup: great play­ers can lead it wher­ev­er they want. This West In­di­an XI does not have great play­ers.They have great tri­ers. Cap­tain Ja­son Hold­er and coach Phil Sim­mons put the men on de­fence–un­der­stand­able con­sid­er­ing the op­po­si­tion had a fat lead.

Their best ef­forts have tak­en the Test to a point where the weath­er can threat­en what once looked a cer­tain vic­to­ry for In­dia.A trop­i­cal storm has been fore­cast to hit the re­gion on the fourth day with In­dia de­clar­ing 304 runs ahead and West In­dies yet to bat in the sec­ond in­nings.

Ajinkya Ra­hane found him­self part of a pat­tern, one that has been cen­tral to In­dia's suc­cess on this tour of the Caribbean.They have bat­ted eleven-and-a-half ses­sions in this se­ries. And a set bats­man had been out there most of the time.Shikhar Dhawan, Vi­rat Kohli and R Ash­win be­gan the trend in An­tigua.

It con­tin­ued with KL Rahul on day two and Ra­hane on day three, who went on to score his sev­enth Test hun­dred. This is the eighth straight se­ries that he has scored a score of at least 90 in. In­dia were not pan­ick­ing look at the weath­er. The moun­tains on the hori­zon were ob­scured by heavy cloud.

Rain came sev­en overs af­ter lunch and spir­it­ed 52 min­utes out of the game.Off­spin­ning all­rounder Ros­ton Chase took two wick­ets in two balls and had them eight down soon af­ter play re­sumed. The run-scor­ing stayed se­date.

Vi­rat Kohli, sip­ping a hot bev­er­age in the dress­ing room, was still in his train­ing gear. He was clear­ly not think­ing about the de­c­la­ra­tion.

Per­haps Ra­hane ap­proach­ing a Test cen­tu­ry away from home had some­thing to do with that. And with on­ly Nos 10 and 11 for com­pa­ny he be­gan to farm the strike. This was where West In­dies' dis­ci­pline paid off.They had giv­en away on­ly 142 runs in 46.1 overs. They made In­dia bat long for a lead they liked.

Ra­hane squirt­ed an out­side edge be­tween slip and the wick­et­keep­er in the 170th over to reach his third hun­dred in four in­nings, cap­tured on cam­era by the coach Anil Kum­ble and cel­e­brat­ed vig­or­ous­ly by his team-mates.

The lo­cals at Sabi­na Park had some­thing to cheer too when Chase in­duced a top edge from Umesh Ya­dav to wrap up his first five-for in his sec­ond Test.

With a high-arm ac­tion re­sem­bling Nathan Ly­on, he got the ball to dip and bounce. Amit Mishra failed to get to the pitch of one and caught at short leg.

Sec­onds lat­er Mo­hammed Sha­mi was bowled play­ing down the wrong line. Chase wore a sheep­ish grin on day two when he con­ced­ed he hadn't liked go­ing with­out a wick­et on de­but. Now he was lead­ing his team off.

While it will be de­bat­ed if In­dia need­ed to bat on af­ter the first rain break, or if they bat­ted on to let Ra­hane reach his hun­dred–he was 83 when the rain came down–the fact re­mains that In­dia had now bat­ted West In­dies out of the match.

It re­mained to be seen if In­dia would give enough time to reg­is­ter their first set of con­sec­u­tive wins out­side Asia since 2006, but they were as­sured they were not go­ing to lose this one.

ES­P­N­cricin­fo

SCORE­BOARD

West In­dies 1st in­nings

KC Brath­waite c Pu­jara b Shar­ma 1

R Chan­dri­ka c Rahul b Mo­hammed Sha­mi 5

DM Bra­vo c Kohli b Shar­ma 0

MN Samuels c Rahul b Ash­win 37

J Black­wood lbw b Ash­win 62

RL Chase c Dhawan b Mo­hammed Sha­mi 10

SO Dowrich c �Sa­ha b Ash­win 5

JO Hold­er c Rahul b Ash­wi 13

D Bishoo c Dhawan b Ash­win 12

ML Cum­mins not out 24

ST Gabriel c Kohli b Mishra 15

Ex­tras (w 2, nb 10) 12

To­tal (all out; 52.3 overs) 196 (3.73 runs per over)

Fall of wick­ets 1-4 (Brath­waite, 2.4 ov), 2-4 (Bra­vo, 2.5 ov), 3-7 (Chan­dri­ka, 5.1 ov), 4-88 (Black­wood, 25.3 ov), 5-115 (Samuels, 29.3 ov), 6-127 (Dowrich, 35.1 ov), 7-131 (Chase, 36.4 ov), 8-151 (Bishoo, 43.3 ov), 9-158 (Hold­er, 45.5 ov), 10-196 (Gabriel, 52.3 ov)

Bowl­ing O M R W

Shar­ma 10 1 53 2

Mo­hammed Sha­mi 10 3 23 2

R Ash­win 16 2 52 5

UT Ya­dav 6 1 30 0

A Mishra 10.3 3 38 1

In­dia 1st in­nings

KL Rahul c �Dowrich b Gabriel 158

S Dhawan c Bra­vo b Chase 27

CA Pu­jara run out (Chase) 46

V Kohli c Chan­dri­ka b Chase 44

AM Ra­hane not out 108

R Ash­win lbw b Bishoo 3

WP Sa­ha� lbw b Hold­er 47

A Mishra c Chan­dri­ka b Chase 21

Mo­hammed Sha­mi b Chase 0

UT Ya­dav c Hold­er b Chase 19

Ex­tras (b 8, lb 3, w 6, nb 10) 27

To­tal (9 wick­ets dec; 171.1 overs) 500

(2.92 runs per over) To bat I Shar­ma

Fall of wick­ets 1-87 (Dhawan, 19.3 ov), 2-208 (Pu­jara, 72.2 ov), 3-277 (Rahul, 95.4 ov), 4-310 (Kohli, 103.3 ov), 5-327 (Ash­win, 112.1 ov), 6-425 (Sa­ha, 151.4 ov), 7-458 (Mishra, 163.4 ov), 8-458 (Mo­hammed Sha­mi, 163.5 ov), 9-500 (Ya­dav, 171.1 ov)

Bowl­ing O M R W

ST Gabriel 28 8 62 1

ML Cum­mins 26.4 4 87 0

JO Hold­er 34.2 12 72 1

RL Chase 36.1 4 121 5

D Bishoo 35 5 107 1

KC Brath­waite 11 0 40 0


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