Dhoni and India returned to winning ways. Pocketing the series with two straight wins in first two tests, winning comprehensively within first 4 days helped India return on track, although the fans refused to return to watch the matches. India registered its third series win over West Indies at home, and are set for a whitewash.
After the humiliation in England, and the tough series in West Indies, the Home series against West Indies was by no means a cakewalk. To add to the challenges, selectors provided a bowling attack full of new faces and debutants. Return of the strong batting line up was a boon, yet everyone knew that you can not win test matches without taking 20 wickets of opposition, even if it was comparatively weaker West Indies.
On the 4th day of second test at Kolkata, Darren Bravo in the company of Samuels with support from Chanderpaul and others posed a huge challenge, but the win was never in doubt considering huge 478 runs first innings lead.
Darren Bravo, compared to Brian Lara by many, performed in similar fashion. Playing his 9th test match he scored his second test century. He and Samuels attacked the Indian bowlers, with Samuels scoring 84 runs, with almost run-a-ball speed. But, everybody including the Indian team had the feeling that breaking 5th wicket stand may open the gates.
Nobody was disappointed. As soon as 5th wicket fell, Umesh Yadav went for the kill and in the company of other bowlers cleaned the last 6 wickets within 62 runs. It was so quick that when everyone was awaiting a healthy target for India to chase in second innings, West Indies lost by an innings.
The bowling of Umesh Yadav on the dead pitch was a silver lining for India, probably booking him a ticket to Australia too. Many pitched in for him being Man of the Match. But the gritty unbeaten 176 runs that formed the basis of huge Indian total, helped the King of Eden Gardens, VVS Laxman grab another Man of the Match award at Kolkata.
Setbacks
Amidst successful performance by almost all the Indian players, the below average performance of Yuvraj Singh could not be hidden. Not surprisingly, he was dropped from the squad announced for third test at Mumbai.
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