India demolish West Indies to register their biggest ever win in Test cricket
Clinical, dominant and ruthless, three components which could describe India's victory against West Indies. Virat Kohli and Co demolished an apathetic, disinterested West Indies side to register their biggest ever win in Test cricket by an innings and 272 runs in the 1st Test of the two-match series in Rajkot. (IND vs WI Match Highlights)
India's previous highest innings victory came in June when they beat Test debutants Afghanistan by an innings and 262 runs at Bengaluru within two days.
India started off their show with Prithvi Shaw scoring his maiden ton (134) on his debut, followed by Virat Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja scoring their respective centuries as well. (IND vs WI Match Scorecard)
Cheteshwar Pujara (86) and Rishabh Pant (92) pitched in with their gritty knocks as well. The Indian batsmen went on to declare at 649/9 on the second day as they bullied the visitors in their backyard.
After posting a mammoth total for Windies, their bowlers collected six wickets on Day 2 itself. On the third day, they rolled over the visitors for 181 and enforced a follow-on, to which the Caribbean islanders could only conjure up 196 before being bowled out again.
By tea on Saturday, it became clear that the game will be done and dusted inside three days with the West Indies batsmen cutting a sorry picture at 185 for eight.
India won the 1st Test by a whopping innings and 272 runs on the third day itself.
While Ravichandran Ashwin (4/37) was the pick of the bowlers in the morning, Kuldeep Yadav (5/57) was all over the opposition batsmen in the second innings on way to a maiden five-wicket haul in Tests.
The second and final Test will be played in Hyderabad from October 12-16. The West Indies will have to lift themselves to put up a better performance after being thoroughly outplayed in Rajkot. The absence of captain Jason Holder and pacer Kemar Roach also added to their woes.
For India, the game will be best remembered for the emergence of Prithvi Shaw, who announced his arrival in international cricket with a classy hundred on debut, becoming the youngest from the country to do so in Tests.
Putting aside the England debacle, India imposed their dominance in their home yard and will look to whitewash the series in Hyderabad after taking a 1-0 lead in the two-match series.
(With PTI Inputs)
