The fourth Test in Mumbai saw the three dimensions of Virat Kohli shine through - the batsman, the captain and the cricket statesman. He broke England's back with a superlative 235, his third double ton since July; never let the visitors breathe easy with his pro-active and clear-headed captaincy, and made a sagacious intervention to douse the fires when Ashwin got into a spat with Anderson over comments the English pacer had made about Kohli himself.
With Kohli came a new culture into Team India where skill, attitude, ambition and prudence merge to make for a potent cocktail. With coach Anil Kumble lending considerable weight as a teacher, tactician and motivator, Kohli has gone about fashioning a bunch of talented, fearless yet thoughtful cricketers who relish a challenge. It's interesting to note that while Kohli has trimmed his own strokeplay to help him make hundreds in Tests, he hasn't ever asked the youngsters in his team do the same, allowing them to dare and dream. In the end, it was all too easy. After sparring with England on all four days, India trampled upon them on the final stretch, taking little time to complete the last rites of the fourth Test at the Wankhede Stadium. Resuming at 182 for six, the visitors lost their remaining four wickets merely for 13 runs more, all in a matter of 32 minutes and 48 balls to lose the match by an innings and 36 runs and the series 3-0.
That this thumping win came on a ground on which India had suffered a shocking ten-wicket defeat at the hands of the same opposition, back in 2012, made the triumph sweeter. This is only the third time in Test cricket when a team has lost a Test by an innings after putting up 400 in its first innings. Fittingly, it was Ravichandran Ashwin who cleaned up all the four wickets that fell in the morning. The off-spinner bamboozled the batsmen with a mixture of top spinners and carrom balls. The 30-year-old finished with six for 55 for the game and 12 for 167 in the match, best bowling figures by a spinner at the Wankhede.
This is the fifth series India have won under him since beating Sri Lanka 2-1 in August last year, a run which has seen them unbeaten in 17 consecutive Tests. His double hundred here will be remembered for a long time, but Kohli still cherishes his hundred in the second innings in Adelaide more.
New records
- Kohli's 235 represents his highest Test score, beating the 211 he made against New Zealand in October.
- It is also the biggest score by an India skipper in Tests, surpassing the 224 that MS Dhoni made in a Chennai Test against Australia in February 2013.
- The hosts' captain has now compiled a remarkable 640 runs in the series, with one Test still to come, breaking the previous record for an India batsman against England. Rahul Dravid made 602 runs in the 2002 series between the teams.
- Kohli is the first Indian to make three double-hundreds in a calendar year and only the fifth batsman from any nation, after Don Bradman, Ricky Ponting, Michael Clarke and Brendon McCullum.
- The partnership between Kohli and Jayant was worth 241, comfortably India's best effort for the eighth wicket in Tests. The previous record belonged to Mohammad Azharuddin and Anil Kumble, who shared 161 versus South Africa in 1996.
- Jayant is the first Indian to make a Test century from number nine. Farokh Engineer's 90 against New Zealand had stood as the best score by an India number nine since 1965. Jayant is also the owner of the most substantial score from nine in Indian first-class cricket, having made 211 for Haryana in 2011.
- Jennings was lbw for a golden duck in the first over of England's reply. The first-innings centurion is the fourth batsman – after Gundappa Viswanath, Andrew Hudson and Mohammad Wasim – to make a hundred and a duck on Test debut.
- Ravichandran Ashwin took 6-55 - his 24th five-wicket haul in test cricket - for match figures of 12-167; his 10th ten-wicket match-haul in 43 tests.
