5 Reasons behind Team India's resounding win against the West Indies
India won the second Test against the West Indies at Hyderabad by 10 wickets and with that the series by 2-0 margin. This was India’s 10th successive Test series win at home. In this period, India had beaten all Test playing nations except Pakistan who didn’t tour India.
When play started on the third day on Sunday morning with India on 304 for 4, everyone thought that India would bat on and on and the match would go into the fourth day. But the sudden unexpected loss of wickets by India and then the collapse by West Indies fast forwarded the match and out of nowhere, the match got over in 3 days.
Here is a look at the 5 reasons behind India’s resounding win.
#1. Umesh Yadav’s decisive bowling spell
Umesh Yadav became only the third Indian fast bowler after Kapil Dev and Javagal Srinath to claim 10 wickets in a Test match in India. In the first innings, whenever Kohli brought Umesh on, he obliged his captain with a wicket.
Umesh never allowed partnerships to flourish in the West Indies first innings and finished with figures of 6 for 88.
India took a slender lead of 56 runs in the first innings. When the West Indies started their second innings, they were eager to wipe out the first innings deficit with minimum damage and to build from thereon.
At the start of his spell in the second innings, Umesh was on a hat-trick and Brathwaite barely managed to keep the first ball out. But he struck with his second ball, removing the latter for a duck.
Umesh Yadav’s telling contribution came in his second spell when he cleaned up the first innings centurion Roston Chase for 6. With the very next ball, he rattled Dowrich’s off-stump.
Umesh was on a hat-trick for the second time in the match. This time new batsman Holder denied him the hat-trick. Umesh came back to polish off the West Indies innings with the wicket of Gabriel.
He finished with figures of 4 for 45 in the second innings. He had match figures of 10 for 133, a remarkable achievement for a bowler who was India’s 5th choice fast bowler.
7 out of his 10 dismissals were either bowled or LBW. In the end, Umesh's performance was the difference between the two teams.