Force incredible 7-wicket win in rain-truncated 2nd Test at Kapur with nearly 1 ½ sessions of play remaining
The Bangladesh national cricket team crossed the border Into India starry-eyed after their historic first ever Test series win against Pakistan, a 2-0 whitewash, that too in the latter’s own backyard, marking only their third Test series win away from home. Little would they have visualised they will be thumped so badly as to start seeing stars in daylight.
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It’s remarkable the way India forced a crushing defeat on the visitors in a rain truncated 2nd Test in just over two-days play to complete a 2-0 clean sweep of the series. In doing so India have proved that with the talent and confidence the team has it can make possible the seemingly impossible.
The 7-wicket victory at The Green Park in Kanpur, with nearly 1 ½ sessions of play remaining in a match two full days of which were lost to rain, was an even more impressive one than the 280-run pasting of the visitors in the first Test at Chennai in terms of the sheer resolve and clinical execution of plans displayed by the team.
With the 2-0 series sweep, India have extended their streak of consecutive series wins at home to 18. The next best by any team is by Australia who had two different streaks of 10. Four thousand three hundred and six (4306) are the number of days since India last lost a Test series at home.
India has also consolidated their lead on the top of the World Test Series (WTC) 2023-2025 leaderboard.
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Meanwhile, for his excellent performance, with half centuries in both innings (72 and 51), young and talented opener Yashasvi Jaiswal collected the ‘Player of the Match’ award, while star allrounder Ravichandran Ashwin bagged the ‘Player of the Series’ award for the 11th time in his career for his masterly century and six wickets in the first Test in Chennai, and six more dismissals in Kanpur.
Yashasvi Jaiswal became the eighth player overall and the second Indian to score 50 or more in both innings of a Test at a pace of more than run-a-ball. The only Indian, and the first player ever to do so before him, was Virender Sehwag against West Indies at Delhi in 2011. England’s Harry Brook is the only player in the world to have done this twice.
In winning his 11th Man of the Series award in Tests, Ravichandran Ashwin equalled Muttiah Muralitharan’s record for winning the most Man of the Series awards in Test cricket. Muttiah Muralitharan played 60 series, while Ashwin reached the landmark in just 39 series.
India’s pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah continued his highly productive 2024 with a six-wicket match haul. The prolific pacer now has the joint-most Test wickets in this year (38) with Sri Lanka’s Prabath Jayasuriya.
Proceedings on the last day of the 2nd Test at Kapur began with Bangladesh resuming their second outing at 26/2 still trailing by 26 runs from India’s first innings total. Ashwin struck early inducing a false sweep shot from first innings unbeaten centurion Mominul Haque.
The skiddy Ravindra Jadeja then ran through the middle order, first getting rid of captain Najmul Hossain Shanto and breaking his stubborn partnership of 55 with opener Shadman Islam. He stuck in three consecutive overs, also sending back wicketkeeper-batsman Litton Das and allrounder Shakib Al Hasan. His bowling analysis in the initial part of his spell read 2.2-1-3-3.
Bangladesh slumped from 91/3 to 94/7 with pacer Akash Deep chipping in with the seventh wicket, and Bumrah polishing off the tail.
It was an incredible performance by the hosts both with the bat and ball. They took just 121.2 overs to skittle out the entire Bangladesh team twice and rattled off the winning runs in both innings in just 51.6 overs.
