After defeating West Indies in T20s and ODIs, India has started their campaign with a win against West Indies in Test Series too. The first test match was held in Antigua where India defeated the Caribbeans with a huge margin of 318 runs and got the lead of 1-0 in this 2-match series.
Also with this win, India has got precious 60 points in the tally of ICC World Test Championship points table.
On the first day, when WI won the toss and decided to field first, their pacers didn’t disappoint. India was 25-3 during the first hour of first session but after that Rahane played one gutsy knock and had two partnerships of 66-runs with KL Rahul (44 runs. 97 balls, 5x4s) and 82-runs with Hanuma Vihari (32 runs, 56 balls, 5x4s) which helped India to recover from the early breakthroughs. Rahane’s rescuing battle of 81 in the middle order and Jadeja’s knock of 58 with tail-enders helped India to put 297 on the board in their first inning. Kemar Roach took 4-wickets and Gabriel had 3-wickets in their account.
In Day 2, WI openers tried to give a good start to their team but no player took the responsibility of playing patiently and their 5 players reached the score of 20s but no one scored a half century for the team. Only Roston Chase(48 runs, 5x4s and 6×1) and Jason Holder(39 runs, 5x4s) showed some fight and helped the team to cross the 200 landmark. Ishant’s brilliant bowling with the figures of 17-5-43-5 helped India to bundle out the WI’s first inning in 222 runs and India got the first inning lead of 75 runs.
In the second inning, once again Mayank Agarwal failed to contribute with the bat and his cards read 5 and 16 in first and second innings respectively. Rahul and Pujara got their starts but didn’t able to convert it into a big score. Once again, Rahane rescued the downfall of India and built the partnership of 106-runs with Kohli before the Captain got out on 51. After that, Hanuma joined Rahane and both the players took the scorecard to 300 which helped India to get the lead of 400+. India declared their second inning at 343/7 and West Indies got the target of 418 runs. Rahane scored 102 and Hanuma had their share of 93 runs in the second inning, Roston Chase filled their cup with four scalps.
When West Indies came to bat, they had the intentions of battling hard and record a historic win against India but Bumrah’s spell of 8-3-7-5 broke the backbone of WI’s batting line-up and they never got enough time to recover from it. In just the passage of 27 overs, West Indies got bundled out at just 100 runs.
India started from where they’ve left off in T20s and ODIs. Rahane was awarded the Man of the Match for his outstanding knocks of 81 and 102 in first and second innings respectively. Also, this was India’s fourth-highest Test win and their biggest win in away matches.
Except first hour of the first day, West Indies never looked stable in the game and lost with the record margin of 318 runs. We hope that West Indies will come strongly in their second encounter against India which will start on 30th Aug in Jamaica.
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