In the third innings at Queen’s Park Oval, Rohit Sharma and Yashasvi Jaiswal put together the fastest opening stand in the history of Test cricket.
After bowling out India for 438, West Indies had ended day three of the second Test match, at Port of Spain, on 229-5. They averted the follow-on on the fourth morning, but Mohammed Siraj took a career-best haul of 5-60 to bowl them out for 255.
India needed quick runs for an early declaration, particularly with rain in the air. Captain Rohit Sharma and Yashasvi Jaiswal, the openers, set off immediately.
Rohit took the lion’s share of the strike, and made the most of it by slamming the quickest fifty of his Test career, off only 35 balls. There have been nine quicker Test fifties by Indians, along with two other 35-ball fifties.
Kapil Dev alone has four of these 11 entries, while the Indian record still lies with Rishabh Pant (28 balls against Sri Lanka in 2021/22). However, only one of these – Virender Sehwag (33 balls) at Gros Islet in 2006 – had come against West Indies.
Jaiswal and Rohit continued with the onslaught. After 10 overs, India were 90-0 – the most runs scored by a side at that point in an innings.
By the time Rohit fell for a 44-ball 57, he and Jaiswal had already added 98 in 71 balls. The run rate of 8.28 makes it the quickest for any opening partnership more than 50 runs (though Marcus Trescothick and Michael Vaughan had once chased exactly 50 in five overs).
Rohit and Jaiswal finished the series with 466 runs across three stands. This is now an Indian record for any Test series away from home, eclipsing the 459 added by Sehwag and Akash Chopra across eight innings in Australia in 2004/05.
Even if one includes home series, only Sunil Gavaskar and Chetan Chauhan (537 runs in eight innings against Australia in 1979/80) and Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir (477 in eight against Pakistan in 2004/05) have aggregated more runs for the first wicket.
India soon reached the fastest team hundred in Test cricket, after 14.2 overs. Once Jaiswal fell for a 30-ball 38, Ishan Kishan joined Shubman Gill.
Kishan soon blasted the joint-fastest fifty for India against the West Indies, off 33 balls, equalling Sehwag’s record, and the second-fastest Test fifty by an Indian wicketkeeper, after Pant’s feat. Both records are mentioned above.
Rohit called Gill (29 in 37 balls) and Kishan (52 in 34 balls) in a ball later. India had amassed 181-2 in 24 overs – the fastest three-digit score in Test cricket history. At 7.54, they finished marginally ahead of Australia’s 7.53 (241-2 declared in 32 overs against Pakistan at Sydney in 2016/17).
Chasing 365, the West Indies were 19-0 at the time of writing.
