Rahul is the first Indian opener to score a century in his first Test innings in West Indies. The Indian batsman broke a plethora of records on his way to the 158 as India ended the day with a 162-run lead. With three days left, they have time on their side and seem determined to grind out a big lead. It was a compact innings in which he played 303 balls. Kohli’s innings had four boundaries and a six.
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The first of the trio to be dismissed was Rahul, who, in attempting to fend off a short ball from Gabriel, only succeeded to edge to wicketkeeper Shane Dowrich for 158. Pujara too defended well and pushed hard between the wickets. New Zealand’s Glenn Turner scored 223 not-out at the Sabina Park in Jamaica in 1971-72, while South Africa’s Andrew Hudson made 163 in Bridgetown in 1991-92. Rahul may be light on experience, but he is a mature batsman, and in the company of Cheteshwar Pujara, the runs flowed freely.
Kohli joined Rahul and the pace picked up appreciably.
He reached his hundred by hoisting Chase for six to the 182nd ball he faced, and the fist-pumping celebration which followed showed how much it meant to him, despite the West Indies not being the toughest of oppositions. “Hopefully they will stand up again tomorrow morning and we get the wickets we need”, he added. In the process, Ashwin also became only the third Indian bowler to have claimed five-wicket innings hauls in three consecutive Test matches after Bhagwath Chandrasekhar and current coach Anil Kumble.
Earlier, Rahul and Pujara had played out a slow morning session, as India were trailing the hosts by just 11 runs at lunch.
Rahul and Pujara started off cautiously adding to their overnight score of 126/1 slowly. However they didn’t have any help from the weather, as it was bright and sunny when play began, rendering this a good day to bat.
He beat the bat on more than one occasion during his spell and would have been expected to shoulder a lot of the bowling heading into the afternoon session, especially with the West Indies continuing to use their premier strike bowler, Shannon Gabriel, sparingly due to his very recent history of debilitating injuries. Other top order batsmen have scored at a strike rate of almost 50 or above.
Rahul also praised Pujara for his labourious 159 ball innings, which was cut short after a brilliant run out by Roston Chase. The 150-mark came up in the 52nd over and the duo brought up their 50-partnership off 141 deliveries. His only other hundred is 108 vs Sri Lanka at Colombo (PSS) in August 2015.
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“We weren’t in any hurry to score runs. So you couldn’t play through the line or go after the bowlers when they bowled those channels”.
