In what was a typical Indian performance at home, the Rohit Sharma-led side razed through England batting line-up in just over three hours to bring an end to the third Test in Rajkot inside four days. In doing so, India won by 434 runs, their biggest ever Test win in terms of run-margin.
The victory is India’s fourth of the ongoing ICC World Test Championship 2023-25 cycle which has helped them move a place up to the second spot.
Also Read: In Bazball Time, India Blow England Away to Take 2-1 Lead
India, the two time runners-up at WTC, have a points percentage (PCT) of 59.52 now which is the second-best behind table-toppers New Zealand who recently defeated South Africa 2-0 for their historic first ever Test series win over them.
England were seventh before the start of the Rajkot Test but the defeat meant their PCT has dropped from 25 to 21.88 and hence they are now just a rung ahead of bottom-placed Sri Lanka on the nine-team WTC points table.
The Ben Stokes-led side has swapped places with South Africa who are now seventh with a PCT of 25.
England have now played eight Tests in the current cycle and won three of them while losing four and one ending in a draw.
Defending champions Australia have slipped a spot to third. They have six wins, three defeats and a draw from their 10 Tests so far.
Bangladesh (4th), Pakistan (5th) and West Indies (6th) are static.
India were a class apart from England in Rajkot as they took a 2-1 series lead.
They recovered from 33/3 to 445-all out in first innings after opting to bat first thanks to centuries from captain Rohit Sharma and allrounder Ravindra Jadeja.
They made another comeback after England had raced away to 207/2 in 35 overs. The bowlers produced a combined display to limit England to 319-all out and take a sizeable 126-run lead.
Yashasvi Jaiswal peeled off a second successive double-century while Shubman Gill scored 91 and Sarfaraz Khan hit unbeaten 68 as India set England an imposing 557 to win.
England crumbled in the chase and were shot out for 122.
“Lots of turning points, was a good toss to win, we know how important in India it is to win the toss, the way we came back and bowled after that onslaught,” Rohit said at the post-match presentation. “The bowlers showed a lot of character…With the bat we knew the job was half-done, those two youngsters got us the lead we wanted and obviously Jadeja with the ball in the 2nd innings was superb.”
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