India completed a comfortable sweep of the series against West Indies at Sabina Park giving them an excellent start to the ICC Test Championship. The second West Indies innings wasn’t as easy as there was some fight from the host batters. The Indian bowling though kept it tight and some amazing spells from Mohammad Shami and Ravindra Jadeja meant that India wrapped up the game with a day to spare to complete yet another series win in the Carribean.
West Indies began the day on 45/2 but soon lost Darren Bravo to concussion becoming the second batter in the last month to leave the field in that fashion. Jermaine Blackwood came in as the substitute later in the innings. Roston Chase and Shamarh Brooks held the fort for a while before Jadeja accounted for the latter leaving West Indies 97/3. Hetmyer came in and left in a jiffy for a duck as West Indies once again found themselves in trouble.
Jermaine Blackwood who walked in as the concussion substitute then formed a good partnership of 61 with Shamarh Brooks before getting out to Bumrah for a well made 38. Jason Holder scored an attacking 39 but the rest of the batting folded quickly as West Indies were eventually bowled out for 210. Losing the Test by a huge margin of 257 runs.
The Indian bowling unit stuck to their task as the West Indian batters finally showed some fight. Mohammad Shami and Jadeja were the picks of the bowlers for India each accounting for 3 wickets on the fourth day. The Test overall was very good for India and the series win also gave Virat Kohli his 28th win as captain making him the most successful in the history of Indian cricket.
India also would have been thrilled with the progress of Hanuma Vihari who scored his first Test hundred and was solid throughout the series. Ajinkya Rahane’s form with the bat would have also been heartening for the team management as he is one of a most important member of the batting unit. The biggest success of this tour once again was the pace bowling. The pace trio of Ishant Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami were brilliant once again and showed that they are among the best in the business at the moment.
For West Indies, though this was a sharp fall from the highs of beating England earlier this year. The capitulation of the batters is something which they would need to address and it will not be an overnight fix. The bowling of the skipper himself and of Kemar Roach would be the only positive for the hosts to take from this as they were comprehensively beaten by a much superior team.
For India and Virat Kohli, this has been a perfect tour. They have accomplished what they were set out to do. They found some good young players and a win in all three format caps off yet another successful overseas sojourn for the Indian captain.
