Indian batsman Ajinkya Rahane scored his seventh Test century as India declared at 500/9 to take a vital 304-run first innings lead against the West Indies on the third day of the second cricket Test at the Sabina Park Stadium on Monday. Rahane remained unbeaten on 108 off 237 balls, with 13 fours and three sixes. He was well supported at the other end by Wriddhiman Saha (47) and tail-enders Amit Mishra (21) and Umesh Yadav (19).
Resuming the day at 358/5, Rahane and Saha braved the difficult conditions and excellent bowling and patiently build the visitors' lead. Rahane reached his half-century in style, cutting pacer Miguel Cummins over the slip cordon for a boundary. However, with the boundaries too few and far between, the scoring rate became a bit slow.
Rahane and Saha displayed loads of grit and patience to take India to 425/6 at lunch. At lunch, Rahane was unbeaten on 74 runs. Saha, on the other hand, was unlucky to miss out on what would have been an extremely well-deserved half-century as he was dismissed on the last ball before tea.
The Bengal wicketkeeper-batsman scored 47 runs before being outfoxed by a delivery from fast bowler Jason Holder that stayed a bit low after pitching. Holder was the only West Indies bowler to taste success in the pre-lunch session, returning figures of 1/66 from the 32 overs he has bowled so far. With the wicket showing appreciable movement and bounce, he exploited the conditions well to make the going tough for the Indian batsmen, outfoxing them time and again.
Leg-spinner Devendra Bishoo was also impressive, making the ball turn sharply to cause plenty of trouble for the batsmen.
Resuming play after lunch from 425/6, Rahane and Mishra held on quite well by gathering some useful runs before Mishra fell to Chase. The off-spinner struck in two successive balls to remove Mishra and incoming batsman Mohammad Shami. Earlier, K L Rahul scored 158 which helped India to reach the mammoth total of 500 for 9.
