India lost their last five wickets for 37 runs after Ashwin (118) and Saha (104) forged a 213-run stand for the sixth wicket to get their team out of a hard situation.
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It was also Saha’s first test ton, and the second-highest sixth-wicket partnership by India in an away test.
R. Ashwin acknowledges the crowd after reaching his fifty on the first day of the third Test against the West Indies. In the process Ashwin became the first Indian to score multiple hundreds and take multiple five-wicket hauls in a Test series.
Missed opportunities in the final session of day one have now proved costly with Ashwin dropped at short-leg off Roston Chase and then caught off a Gabriel no-ball. But the two batsmen were still not looking to get on with the scoring rate as they looked to settle down and play a long innings that would give their team the upper hand once again.
Ashwin is one of just six Indian batsmen to post four or more hundreds against the West Indies in Test history, the off-spinning allrounder boasting a far superior hundreds-per-innings ratio to the other five to have achieved the feat.
In contrast, Ashwin was content to retain a conservative approach prior to lunch, taken with the all-rounder on 99 and Saha up to 93. This news story is related to Latest/141551-Ashwin-Saha-close-on-hundreds-against-Windies/ – breaking news, latest news, pakistan ne.
He had scored 46 important runs the previous day, and today he started to impose himself a lot more playing the drive well, flicking the ball into the gaps and lofting the spinners to the boundary.
With lunch beckoning, Rahul perished in the third over before the interval, caught by Kraigg Brathwaite at a short backward square, attempting to play Chase into the on-side.
But Brathwaite remained unbeaten on 53 at the end of the day’s play with Darren Bravo on 18 as the West Indies reached a decent position on 107-1.
West Indies’ Miguel Cummins celebrates taking the wicket of India’s Ishant Sharma during day two of their third cricket Test match at the Daren Sammy Cricket Ground in Gros Islet, St. Lucia, Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2016.
The joy of achieving a lifelong dream and the accompanying sense of relief led to a lapse in concentration, and Saha (104) pushed hard at a slightly wide one from Alzarri Joseph, nicking off to Shane Dowrich.
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Ashwin thought he had been dismissed by seamer Shannon Gabriel while the batsman was on 35, before an umpire review determined that Gabriel had bowled a back foot no ball.
