India vs West Indies: A history of 2nd Test played between the two teams in a series in India

With India comprehensively winning the 1st Test match in the ongoing series against West Indies, the focus now shifts on to the 2nd Test match to be held in Hyderabad from October 12th to 16th. Keeping that in mind, let us take a look at the history of all the 2nd Test matches played whenever the Windies toured India.

Before this series, the Windies have toured India 11 times for a bilateral series, the first time being in 1948/49. If we look at the record of the 2nd Test matches played whenever West Indies toured India, it is at a stalemate at the moment, with both India and West Indies winning 3 each and 5 of them being drawn.

The result of all the 2nd Test matches of the West Indies tour of India is as mentioned below:

· 19948/49 – Match drawn

· 1958/59 – West Indies won by 203 runs

· 1966/67 – West Indies won by an innings and 45 runs

· 1974/75 – West Indies won by an innings & 17 runs

· 1978/79 - Match drawn

· 1983/84 - Match drawn

· 1987/88 - Match drawn

· 1994/95 - Match drawn

· 2002/03 – India won by 8 wickets

· 2011/12 – India won by an innings and 15 runs

· 2013/14 – India won by an innings and 126 runs

As can be seen from the results mentioned above, both teams have had their periods of dominance, with the Windies dominating from 1948/49 to 1974/75. India returned the favour in recent times by not losing a single 2nd Test match since the 2002/03 series.

Some of the facts associated with the 2nd Test match whenever the Windies toured India are given below:

· Till date, not a single double century has been scored in the 2nd Test match whenever West Indies has toured India. The highest individual score is 198 scored by Garfield Sobers in the 1958/59 series.

· The record for the best bowling performance in an innings in the 2nd Test is held by Subhash Gupte. He took 9/52 in the 1958/59 series.

· The 2nd Test matches during the West Indies tour of India saw 9 players making their debut, 4 from India and 5 from West Indies. Some of the famous debuts are Polly Umrigar in 1948/49, Bishen Singh Bedi in 1966/67, Malcolm Marshall in 1978/79 Carl Hooper in 1987/88.

· Mumbai has hosted the maximum number of 2nd Tests – 3

· Every time the team that won the toss opted to bat first. India won the toss 6 times and West Indies won it 5 times.

· 631/7 declared is the highest team total in an innings. It was scored by India in the 2011/12 series.

· The 2nd Test in the 2011/12 series saw the only instance of 3 batsmen scoring a century in the same innings of a team. These were scored by Rahul Dravid (119), VVS Laxman (176) and MS Dhoni (144).

· It was also a second Test match of a series in 2013/14 that witnessed the historic moment of Sachin Tendulkar playing his 200th Test match. This was also to be his last Test match.

Team India, the way they are playing at the moment, looks most likely to emerge victorious in the 2nd Test match of the ongoing series. But one can never count the Windies out. They have shown before also that they can emerge strongly when they have their backs against the wall. And maybe just maybe we can witness that elusive double century being scored.