KL Rahul composed a fifty as India accomplished a 2-0 series win over West Indies on the fifth morning in Delhi. Even with 58 runs left to defend, West Indies showed the stomach for a fight as Roston Chase had Sai Sudharsan nicking to Shai Hope at first slip. Rahul was watertight in defence to start off proceedings before using his feet to great effect against spin from both ends. Shubman Gill went after Chase as well to expedite India’s win before he too persihed, mistiming a big shot versus his counterpart. India still completed the win within the first hour’s play.
That this game extended to Day 5 after the Ahmedabad fixture completed in three, was down to West Indies giving a better account of themselves with the bat. In Ahmedabad, they lasted just 44.1 and 45.1 overs in the first and second innings respectively, but almost doubled that tally in the first essay in Delhi. Shubman Gill still enforced the follow-on, and that kept his bowlers out in the field for even longer – 118.5 overs, as West Indies put up a staunch effort. A team that suffered an ignominious 27 all out before stepping foot in India ended by scoring 390 in the second dig.
While the improvement was laudable, it wasn’t enough to get back to winning ways. They kept India in the field for nearly the entirety of Day 4 but were undone towards the end by the odd ball scooting low. India still had to endure valiance from the final-wicket pair of Justin Greaves and Jayden Seales but shortly after nudging the lead past 100 runs, that too was brought to a close.
Yashasvi Jaiswal was in a hurry to get done with the job in a chase of 121 but holed out in the second over. Rahul and Sai Sudharsan joined forces to see off the rest of the day, and were keen to polish off what remained on the fifth morning. West Indies delayed the inevitable with a couple of wickets but India still pranced to a win.
Brief Scores: India 518/5 decl. (Yashasvi Jaiswal 175, Shubman Gill 129*, Sai Sudharsan 87; Jomel Warrican 3-98) & 124/3 (KL Rahul 58*) beat West Indies 248 (Alick Athinaze 41, Shai Hope 36, Tagnarine Chanderpaul 34 ) & 390 (f/o) (John Campbell 113, Shai Hope 103, Justin Greaves 50; Jasprit Bumrah 3-44, Kuldeep Yadav 3-104) by 7 wickets
