On this day in 2016: India seal their 4th series win in West Indies with a massive victory
Dating back to 13 August 2016, India were on their tour to the West Indies and the United States of America while they registered their fourth series win on the island nation. It was during the third Test of the four-match Test series that India sealed the series and marched up 2-0. It was India’s ace spin all-rounder Ravi Ashwin who smashed a century in India’s first innings and pushed the team on the driving seat.
Batting first, India put up a good total of 353 runs on the board in the first innings. KL Rahul set the tone with his sublime fifty but the middle order failed to add anything substantial to the score. However, as soon as Ravi Ashwin and wicketkeeping-batsman Wriddhiman Saha walked up for India, things started turning for good for the Virat Kohli led side.
#TeamIndia No.1 in ICC’s Test rankings. Need to win the final Test versus West Indies to retain top position pic.twitter.com/gJiPZzTKSl
— BCCI (@BCCI) August 17, 2016
While Ashwin smashed a classy century by playing a thunderous knock of 118 runs, Saha chipped in equally with another remarkable ton as he collected 104 runs. Alzarri Joseph and Miguel Cummins took three wickets each for the home side in the first innings of the game. As soon as the Caribbean took hold of the batting, they couldn’t gather the courage to breach even the 250-run mark and got wrapped up on 225 runs.
Kraigg Brathwaite and Marlon Samuels added 64 and 48 runs respectively from their end. Talking of India’s bowling artillery, Bhuvneshwar Kumar rose on the occasion with all his might and bagged a five-wicket haul for India that disrupted the West Indies batting order. When India walked up to bat in the 2nd innings, they already had a good lead of 128 runs and didn’t have much left to do with the bat. Ajinkya Rahane scored 78 runs with the bat while Rohit Sharma produced 41 runs from his bat as India declared on 217 runs.
Miguel Cummins had a blast in the 2nd innings as the right arm pacer picked a stunning six-wicket haul for his team. West Indies had a massive target of 346 runs to chase and their sheer collapse saw them bundling up at merely 108 runs where Darren Bravo’s 59 runs turned out be the highest individual score. While Mohammed Shami picked three wickets for India, Ravindra Jadeja and Ishant Sharma got two each under their belts. R Ashwin was ultimately declared as the player of the match.
