Milestone man Ravichandran Ashwin's fifer and centuries from Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill powered the Indian team to a handsome win in the 5th and final Test of the series at Dharamsala. The much-talked-about Bazball fell apart in the Indian conditions with the Rohit Sharma-led team closing the series on a strong note and winning it 4-1 to script a historic milestone. They outclassed Ben Stokes' troops in the 5th Test by an innings and 64 runs as the bowlers ran through the Englis batting line-up on day 3 at the HPCA Stadium.
On a batting-friendly track of the Dharamsala venue, the visitors were overpowered twice with the willow. They were first bowled out for 218 in the first innings after yet again conceding the advantage that they had. They were once at 100/1 and looked set for a big total after seeing off a difficult period of seam-bowling up front.
The second innings was no exception with wickets falling left, right and center. In his 100th Test, Ravichandran Ashwin complemented his first innings four-wicket haul with a fifer in the second innings. Ashwin decimated England in the second innings to leave them 113/6. Jasprit Bumrah came and got two wickets to take India closer to a win. He took the wickets of Joe Root held one end up and scored a fighting fifty. He combined with Shoaib Bashir for a 47-run stand for the ninth wicket. But Jadeja came to clean Bashir and then Kuldeep got the final wicket in the form of Root, who fell for 84 after slogging a fuller ball down the throat of Bumrah at long-on.
This is the first time in 112 years that a team has won a five-match Test series by a margin of 4-1 after being 1-0 down. The last team to have done so was England, who recovered from 1-0 against Australia in Ashes 1911/12 to win by 4-1.
Probably the only time where England found joy in the game was at the start of day 3 when James Anderson got to his 700th Test wicket. The much-awaited milestone came when the English legend got Kuldeep Yadav caught behind. This was followed by Shoaib Bashir getting his second fifer of the series as he got Bumrah and India ended on 477, having a lead of 259.
In the first innings, England were at a strong stage. They were at 100/1 with Crawley looking strong in the middle. But that was when Kuldeep Yadav stood up on the occasion. He began getting one batter after the other and quickly raced to a fifer with England at 175/6. The milestone man Ashwin then came in and wrapped the tail to take a four-wicket haul.
In India's only batting innings, Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill scored terrific centuries to lead the team. All the top five batters scored over fifty as Yashasvi Jaiswal, Devdutt Padikkal and Sarfaraz Khan also hit fifties.
