After being sorrowfully subjugated by Kangaroos in our successive WTC Final, the turmoiled surroundings hovering over the Indian test side needed to be addressed immediately. With the urgently required transition button being hit, it wouldn’t have been better to take on a wretched West Indian side who’ve been insolvent in winning a test series against India for 21 long years. With new faces dressing up in the headshot session, the Men In Blue added a pinch of misery to the piling melancholic emotions of the ‘2016 WC Champions’. The Caribbeans witness their steepest fall in fortunes and talent, failing to be a certified participant in the 50-over World Cup too.
With the tall tale of prolongation and perpetuation of Pujara being squeezed, it made way for the juvenile Yashasvi Jaiswal to don his colours for the national side. Living well up to his standardized expectations in the domestic circuit, the toiling boy from the streets of Bombay erupted off his test career with an august daddy hundred. The almost flawless 171 from the vigorous lad made him an inspiration to thousands as he waded through labours to achieve his dreams. The cautious plus aggressive nature of the opening partners makes India well-prepared to stick to the left-right combo in tests.
“Of course, it’s really nice to bat with Rohit bhaiya. We are always talking about the situation and how we can go forward, and of course, we had our plans for what we can do, and it was really amazing to bat with him” said the blossoming kid who scored a debut century in Dominica, becoming the 16th Indian batter to achieve this priceless milestone.
Seeing India with the Champions Board makes an Indian heart smile, but everyone has a thought to spare for the West Indies. The 2-time world champions, blessed by the likes of powerhouse cricketers, have witnessed their mammoth downfall, especially in red-ball cricket. A group of numerous islands, countable of them namely Trinidad, Guyana, Jamaica, Dominica & Barbados make up a cricketing nation- The West Indies. The 8th position in sequential WTC cycles justified their lack of infrastructure accompanied by splitting political reasons.
It was pitiful that the momentous centennial test between the two contenders got disrupted by spoilsports rain Gods. With West Indies thanking the relentless rain to avoid a whitewash, they religiously need to unfold with a clean slate. With each one of them from the top order lacking aesthetical batsmanship, the hosts caved in at Port of Spain to avoid a recapitulation of what happened at Dominica. Foot-stepping at a scoring rate of nearly 2, they ensured that existence on the yards was prioritized over any other temptness to even drag the weak deliveries.
Kohli, who appetized 20 deliveries to move to the other end, ended up scoring a polished hundred in his 500th international outing, adding a cherry to the top of his global achievement. At the beginning of his innings, it was the seasoned Roach who lured the veteran with his bait on the 5th stump line deliveries. Spotlighting immense patience, grit, and temperament all through his romantic innings, the star batter was glorious in piercing through the gaps through the cover region. His solid display of intent quenched his thirst for an international test overseas century, ending the drought after 5 long years. As the connoisseur continues to make India fall in love with him even more, the entire cricketing fraternity hopes that he keeps striving for piles of runs, which leaves him just 24 centuries shy of Master Blaster’s insurmountable record of 100 tons.
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With constructive positives surfacing for India in this enterprise, a stakeholder oughts to augment the shady negatives too, which could grieve the team against a muscular South Africa, contrary to a skinny West Indies. Introspecting the batting department, it seems Ajinkya has run out of fortunes and will make way for a rehabilitating Shreyas Iyer on the SA tour. The vice-captaincy designation seems to be a blindfolded and incomprehensible choice that leaves us nothing short of being anguished. It’ll be tough for a seasoned Jaydev Unadkat to commission his spot in the upcoming engagement as he went wicketless in the recent series and turned ineffectual in shaping his first-class run into the international sphere.
As per BCCI’s statement, “Mr. Jasprit Bumrah and Mr. Prasidh Krishna are in the final stages of their rehab and are bowling with full intensity in the nets. The duo will now play some practice games, which the NCA will organize. The BCCI Medical team is pleased with their progress and will make a final decision after assessing them following the practice games”. The reliving lines from the board will probably make India blessed with their absolute gunshot champion – BUMRAH in a couple of weeks’ time.“Well begun is half done” for Team India as they put their foot off the pedal by taking the opponents to the cleaners. While the next assessment in the ultimate engrossing format of this game gets underway in December against the Proteas, the focus shifts to ODI cricket, with the cricketing carnival taking place in our motherland from the 5th of October, 2023.
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