Spinners Ravichandran Ashwin and Axar Patel yesterday took five wickets each as India crushed England inside three days of the fourth Test to seal the series 3-1.
Ashwin bowled Dan Lawrence for 50 as England were dismissed for 135 to complete an emphatic innings-and-25-run victory in Ahmedabad.
Virat Kohli’s India bounced back from an opening defeat to win three in a row and book a meeting with New Zealand in the World Test Championship (WTC) at Lord’s in London in June.
Photo: AP
“Well, we’re obviously happy to win the series, but there are always things to improve,” Kohli said. “Now, we can accept and admit that we are in the WTC final. It did become a bit of distraction for us in New Zealand, but we took it one game at a time since.”
It was another failure for Joe Root’s England, who suffered a drubbing after their two-day loss in the third Test of a series dominated by spinning wickets.
“The last three games have been testing for us, but credit to India, they’ve outplayed us,” Root said. “We’ve got to improve individually and become a better side for this experience and good luck to them in the final.”
Photo: AFP
Ashwin led the series bowling chart with 32 wickets followed by Patel, who played one game fewer, on 27.
England spinner Jack Leach was third with 18 scalps.
This victory was set up by wicketkeeper-batsman Rishabh Pant, who made 101 on day 2, and Washington Sundar, who hit an unbeaten 96 as India made a commanding 365.
Photo: Reuters
Pant scored his third Test ton in a 113-run stand with Sundar to lift India from a precarious 146-6 in response to England’s first-innings total of 205.
Sundar kept up the attack as the final three wickets fell before lunch yesterday, but ran out of partners and remained four shy of a maiden century.
England lost early and regular wickets to go down tamely in 54.5 overs.
Ashwin struck twice on successive deliveries to send back Zak Crawley for 5 and Jonny Bairstow without scoring.
It was Bairstow’s third duck in four innings.
Patel got opener Dom Sibley for 3 and then Ben Stokes for 2 after the left-hand batsman miscued a sweep and was caught at leg-gully by Kohli.
Ashwin took the prized scalp of skipper Root for 30 to virtually end England’s hopes.
The visitors have scored more than 200 just once in their past six innings.
England fast bowler James Anderson made an impression with three wickets and 14 maidens in 25 overs.
Root stood tall for England as he topped the batting chart with 368 runs including 218 the opening Test — his 100th — which England won convincingly.
The two teams now head into five Twenty20 internationals starting on Friday at the same Ahmedabad venue.
Additional reporting by AP
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