Ravichandran Ashwin took five wickets in his landmark 100th Test as India hammered England by an innings and 64 runs in the fifth match to seal the series 4-1 on Saturday.
Off-spinner Ashwin returned figures of 5-77 to help bowl out England for 195 in the tourists’ second innings, the match ending inside three days in Dharamsala.
It was a sad ending to a day that started in celebratory fashion for England as fast bowler James Anderson celebrated his 700th Test wicket.
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Anderson got Kuldeep Yadav caught behind for 30 to become the first paceman and third bowler to the mark, after spinners Sri Lanka’s Muttiah Muralitharan (800 wickets) and late Australian great Shane Warne (708).
The 41-year-old raised the ball to the crowd against the backdrop of the Himalayas in the scenic Dharamsala stadium, as teammates gathered around him and England fans stood up to cheer.
With it, Anderson became the first-ever fast bowler to achieve the feat.
“The hairs on the back of my neck are standing up,” Sir Alastair Cook said on TNT Sports.
It ended Yadav’s stubborn 49-run ninth-wicket overnight stand with Jasprit Bumrah.
Spinner Shoaib Bashir soon wrapped up the innings in the fifth over of the day when he got Bumrah stumped for 20, completing a five-wicket haul.
Unfortunately it was a brief moment of celebration for England, who quickly lost openers Zak Crawley (0) and Ben Duckett (2) to find themselves in a big hole early in the second innings.
Ravi Ashwin was the culprit on both occasions, first dismissing Duckett as the 29-year-old was caught in two minds as whether to defend or attack, instead getting bowled.
That left England at 2-1 before Crawley got a thick edge that was caught by Sarfaraz Khan, seeing Ashwin strike for the second time with the new ball.
Ashwin made it three wickets when Ollie Pope tried to attack him with a sweeping shot but instead got a top edge and sent the ball towards square leg as Yashasvi Jaiswal made the catch.
Jonny Bairstow did well to steady things for England with a few crucial boundaries to try wrestle back some momentum but he too could only do so much, eventually dismissed by lbw on 39 runs to leave England at 92-4 and in desperate need of something.
The hope was that skipper Ben Stokes would be the man to rescue the visitors but instead he only managed two runs as Ashwin picked up his fourth wicket of the innings, clean bowling the England captain.
It saw England down five wickets at lunch and still needing 156 runs to even force India to bat again.
“It’s sad the 700th wicket is going to be glossed over by the fact England have batted so poorly in this session,” Cook later said on TNT Sports.
“To lose five wickets is not unforgivable, but it’s poor batting. The end-of-tour-itis I think has definitely reared its head.”
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England didn’t fare much better after lunch either as Ashwin picked up his fifth wicket, this time beating Ben Foakes as he tried to slog sweep the spin maestro.
Jasprit Bumrah was next to leave his mark on the second innings and he claimed two wickets in quick succession, dismissing both Tom Hartley and Mark Wood via lbw to leave England at 141-8.
India then eventually broke up the 48-run partnership between Joe Root and Shoaib Bashir to all but put the result beyond doubt, although that didn’t take away from what was an admirable knock from Root to bring up a half-century in 90 balls.
While it was not enough to save the visitors it did go a long way to silencing some of the critics he had attracted earlier in the series.
“Since the reverse scoop that everyone talked so much about, he has gone back to his old method of scoring runs in the subcontinent and shown his quality,” Cook said of Root.
“The skill of going forward, going back, showing judgement — a skill other players have not been quite been able to show.”
Root brought up 84 runs before eventually being picked out, with Bumrah taking the catch to seal a 4-1 series victory as England finished all out for 195.
For former India batter Sunil Gavaskar it was a clinical display from the hosts.
“There are no excuses for the regular whining and moaning [about spinning pitches in India]. England have been beaten fair and square,” Gavaskar said on Sky Sports.
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