There have only been two Test matches thus far at the Saurashtra Cricket Association (SCA) Stadium and India face England starting Thursday to play the third. The first of the two Tests was between the same two sides which ended in a draw in November 2016. In the second, India ended up running away to their biggest ever Test victory against the West Indies in October 2018.
The match was memorable in multiple ways for Indian fans and the biggest take away from it was Prithvi Shaw making a dream international debut. Shaw opened the innings with KL Rahul as India batted first and ended up smashing 134 runs in just 154 balls. He was the youngest Indian Test centurion on debut and the second youngest Test centurion for the team since the great Sachin Tendulkar. While Rahul fell for a duck, Shaw posted a partnership of 206 runs for the second wicket with Cheteshwar Pujara, in which he contributed 113 in 124 balls. The stand ended when Pujara fell to Devendra Bishoo on 86. Shaw fell soon thereafter but India then piled on more misery on the West Indies.
Captain Virat Kohli scored 139, sharing a 105-run partnership with Ajinkya Rahane and then a blistering 133-run stand off just 148 balls with Rishabh Pant, with the latter unsurprisingly doing most of the heavy lifting in the partnership. Kohli fell after a 64-run partnership with Ravindra Jadeja after which the latter went on to score 100 in 132 balls. India declared on 649/9.
The West Indies were then blown away for 181 and 196. Ravichandran Ashwin took four wickets in just 11 overs in the first innings after which Kuldeep Yadav picked five and Jadeja three in the second. India won by an innings and 272 runs, their highest margin of victory against the West Indies in Test cricket. Shaw was player of the match and, considering the reputation he had built throughout his time in Mumbai’s junior circuits, the Mumbai first class team and leading India to the U19 World Cup title, it was regarded as the start of a potentially great career. However, he has ended up playing only four more Test matches since then, the last of which came in December 2020. Shaw managed to score two more half-centuries in the eight innings after that. While he has put up extraordinary performances in domestic first class cricket since 2020, a return to Test cricket or the Indian team in any format looks far away for the 24-year-old at the moment.
