India vs West Indies 2013: Sensational Shami crushes West Indies to hand India the lead in Test series

Md. Shami

Brief Scores:

West Indies 234 & 168 (54.1 ov)

India 453

India won by an innings and 51 runs

A sensational spell from Mohammed Shami saw West Indies crumble in the second innings and hand India a massive innings victory in the first Test at the Eden Gardens, Kolkata. Trailing by a huge margin of 219 runs, the West Indies lineup was blasted wide open by a devastating spell of reverse swing bowling from the debutant Shami, who captured his first 5-wicket haul to topple the Caribbeans for only 168 runs in their second essay.

What appeared to be a tough fight at lunch time on Day 2 was turned into a no-contest by a superb all-round show from R. Ashwin and a great spell of Shami. Ashwin, after notching up his second Test hundred, came back to pick up three wickets to help crush West Indies in just three days.

India started Day 3 with their overnight batsmen Ashwin on 92* and Rohit Sharma on 127*. Both of them started from where they left off, and Ashwin went on to notch his his hundred in the first hour. The pair put together a record seventh wicket partnership of 280 runs that for all practical purposes knocked West Indies out of the game.

Rohit Sharma continued with his delectable stroke play while Ashwin was at complete ease in front of a bowling attack that lacked penetration. They seemed to be in cruise control until Rohit decided not to offer a shot to a harmless delivery from Veerasammy Permaul. Sharma fell for 177, making perhaps only one mistake in the entire innings, and it ended up costing him his wicket and the chance of scoring what would have been a superb double hundred on debut.

Ashwin, at the other end, continued collecting the runs before he was finally knocked over by Shane Shillingford for 124. Ashwin’s wicket also handed Shillingford his 5 wicket haul, a performance that he would prize for the rest of his life.

The Indian tail didn’t wag for long and their innings was wrapped up at 453, leading the West Indies by an immense 219 runs.

The West Indies started off their innings promisingly with Chris Gayle flaying the Indian bowlers, before he was caught by Kohli for 33 off Bhuvneshwar Kumar, yet again. The second wicket partnership between Kieron Powell (36) and Darren Bravo (37), however, steadied the innings by adding 68 runs.

Then it all started to go south for the West Indies. Ashwin got rid of both Powell and Bravo and then Shami returned to rip apart the middle order in a superb display of reverse swing bowling. He trapped Samuels in front of his stumps and then got Denesh Ramdin caught at short forward leg.

Shivnarine Chanderpaul, standing at the non striker’s end, tried to put up a lone fight but Shami was too hot to handle as he cleaned up Sammy and Shillingford before Dhoni ran out Permaul very cleverly. Tino Best fell to Ashwin and Shami came back to wrap up the innings by knocking over Cottrell.

It was a clinical job from the Indian team who looked in a spot of bother on Day 2 during lunch but bounced back brilliantly to knock the Windies out by the end of the third day.

The series now moves to Mumbai, where Sachin Tendulkar will play his 200th and last Test match of his career. If you thought that the celebrations at Kolkata was maddening, wait till you reach Mumbai!