Cricket – India opened their home season with a flourish, sweeping West Indies 2-0 yesterday and tightening the chase for second place in the World Test Championship (WTC) standings after a first series win for Test captain Shubman Gill.
India won the opener in Ahmedabad inside three days and made West Indies follow on in Delhi before coasting to a seven-wicket victory at head coach Gautam Gambhir’s home ground on the day he turned 44.
Gill now has four wins from seven tests as captain.
His men have reduced the gap with Sri Lanka, who are second behind Australia in the WTC standings, ahead of India’s two-test home series against reigning world champions South Africa.
India will particularly be pleased with Kuldeep Yadav, whose eight wickets in Delhi earned the wily left-arm wrist-spinner the player-of-the-match award.
B Sai Sudharsan’s scores of 87 and 39 in Delhi also boosted his bid to hold down the crucial number three spot.
India made the first two WTC finals but lost on both occasions.
West Indies, crushed 3-0 by Australia in their previous series at home, suffered a second successive clean sweep.
Skipper Roston Chase took some satisfaction from their second-innings batting when hundreds by John Campbell and Shai Hope powered them to 390 in a late display of defiance spread across nearly 119 overs.
“I think this is the kind of fight that I wanted to see from us, from matches before,” Chase said.
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