India went ahead after day three, thanks to the brilliance by Virat Kohli and Ajinkya Rahane. The visitors are looking set to win their first World Test Championship match.
A strange record by Cummins
West Indies started the day with 189/8 on board. Jason Holder was on 10 and Miguel Cummins did not yet open his score sheet. Both were looking solid and frustrated the Indian bowlers for more than one hour. They added 41 runs for the 9th wicket. But interestingly Cummins was gone for a 45-ball duck. This is the most balls faced for a duck for the Windies in Test cricket. Windies’ Keith Arthurton bagged a 40-ball duck in the 1995 Lord’s Test against England. In the overall list, Cummins stands at fifth place. Cummins before being dismissed by Ravindra Jadeja batted 95 minutes to produce the second longest batted duck in Test cricket in terms of time. He is just behind Geoff Allott’s duck in 101 minutes against South Africa in the 1999 Auckland Test.
Holder holds
Jason Holder was the key person for West Indies at the end. Although Cummins could not help in terms of adding runs at all, Holder kept playing his games and managed to add a decent amount of runs on his won. He scored 39 off 65 balls and hit five fours in the course. This is only the second time for the Windies in Test cricket that their all the top eight batters got into double-digits but none of them could score a half-century. Earlier this happened in 1987 in Christchurch Test against New Zealand. Overall, this is only the eighth instance of each of top eight batsmen in a Test innings getting dismissed for scores between 10 and 49.
West Indies were eventually all out for 222 runs. Ishant Sharma ended as the most successful bowler for India. Mohammed Shami and Jadeja added one wicket each to their tally on day three. Both ended with two apiece and Jasprit Bumrah eventually had one scalp.
Indians started off the second innings decently. In fact, in comparison to the first innings this stint was much better. Top three batsmen got good starts, failed to capitalize albeit. The openers added 30 before Mayank Agarwal was LBW off Roston Chase. He got the second opener as well as KL Rahul once again threw away a good start after scoring 38. Pujara was in good tough when he was looking set he got a peach of a delivery from Kemar Roach. It went through his bat and pad to crash the wickets. Pujara was gone for a 53-ball 25.
Partnership that saved
India were on 81/3 from 73/2 within one over when the captain and vice-captain duo started to build the innings from the scratch. These two went on to add unbeaten 104 runs as both of them scored individual half-centuries. Â This is now number eight century stand between Virat Kohli and Ajinkya Rahane for the 4th wicket in Test cricket; the most by an Indian pair. They went past the seven 100-run partnerships scored by Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly. Overall, Kohli-Rahane pair have nine century stands between them now in Test cricket for the fourth and lower wicket. They are behind Tendulkar-Ganguly (10) pair have shared more century stands than Kohli-Rahane pair in Test cricket for the fourth and lower wicket.
Rahane continued the momentum from his first innings to score back to back half-centuries in two innings. After scoring 81 in the first innings, Rahane’s focus will be to register his 10th Test century this time. On the other hand, Kohli looked comfortable and relieved after reaching his 20th Test 50 with a boundary through a pull shot. Going by his conversion rate Kohli has a good chance of making his 50 to 100 as out of his 45 previous fifty plus scores, he scored hundred 25 times.
At the end of day’s play, India looked stable on 185/3 with a good lead of 260 runs. With two more days and seven wickets in hand, India’s target should be to add another 100-150 runs and give West Indies  350 plus target in the fourth innings to chase on.
Brief scores:
India 297 and 185/3 in 72 overs leading by 260 runs vs West Indies 222
Ajinkya Rahane (53*), Virat Kohli (51*); Roston Chase (2/69)
Roston Chase (48), Jason Holder (39); Ishant Sharma (5/43),