John Campbell, Shai Hope and the rest of the West Indies team arrived at the Feroz Shah Kotla ground on Sunday with their egos badly bruised and the pressure of yet another ignominious innings defeat weighing heavily on their shoulders. They have left, after dragging the Test match into a fourth day and winning their first session of the series, safe in the knowledge that they at least did not go down without a fight.
India went into the tea break having enforced the follow-on after bundling out the West Indies for 248 and then seeing them under pressure at 35/2. And then both Campbell and Hope, in their final outing with the bat in a series where negativity about their competitive standards has swirled, put together their best partnership of 2025, their first to cross the 100-run mark, defiantly going the entire third session without losing their wickets and keeping the scoreboard ticking. They remain reasonably far behind, still trailing India by 97 runs, but the belief levels have clearly risen as they go into the fourth day with eight wickets in hand and the confidence of finally piling up some solid runs.
“This is the first time we have been able to win a session in the two Test matches so far. You know, it’s about application, I think the lower-order showed a little bit of fight, you know, application, and that’s what we went out there with that same kind of approach. So, I think that is what the message was going out to bat, we set our necks,” West Indies spinner Khary Pierre told reporters here on Sunday.
A partnership of grit and determination 💪🏿#INDvWI | #MenInMaroon pic.twitter.com/Atv1MmFklF
— Windies Cricket (@windiescricket) October 12, 2025
And it would have had the opposite effect on India, perhaps rethinking their earlier-than-necessary declaration on Saturday, and their decision to enforce the follow-on on Sunday after their bowlers had sent down nearly 82 overs.
“There was a discussion to bat. The last two wickets took longer than we would have hoped for. We felt 275 was a good lead. We thought the wicket would keep deteriorating. But it has slowed down even more. It is challenging to get any pace from the wicket. You have to fire the ball in. And when you fire the ball in, there are less chances of the ball spinning. Campbell and Hope batted beautifully. So we would be back tomorrow and get our plans right and hopefully get into the tail,” India assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate said.
The day’s play began with clear indications that as the slow-turning black soil deck deteriorates at the Kotla, there will be precious little left in it for the seamers. Only three wickets have fallen at the hands of fast bowlers in the three days here, two for Mohammed Siraj and one or Jasprit Bumrah.
India’s spinners, though, had their tails up and quickly ran through with four wickets in the first session, Kuldeep picking up three and being the pick of the bunch amongst India’s bowling attack that was dripping with confidence. The pitch, however, did not deteriorate as expected for India, wicket-taking getting progressively harder as the day wore on, indicative in the 73 runs scored by the West Indies tail.
𝗜.𝗖.𝗬.𝗠.𝗜
A catch worthy of being played on loop ➰#TeamIndia Captain Shubman Gill with a splendid effort 👏
Scorecard ▶ https://t.co/GYLslRzj4G#INDvWI | @IDFCFIRSTBank | @ShubmanGill pic.twitter.com/DH3dvSDnHS
— BCCI (@BCCI) October 12, 2025
Once Tagenarine Chanderpaul mishit his pull off Siraj into the diving hands of skipper Shubman Gill, and Washington Sundar got an off-break to turn into the off stump of Alick Athnaze; India looked very much like they will steam through the opposition and finish this game quickly like they did in Ahmedabad last week.
But Campbell and Hope stood up to the task. They targeted the spinners to keep the scoreboard moving and went for their shots. They rotated the strike very effectively and attempted to put any lapses to bed. It was not chanceless, there were a couple of close lbw calls that went their way through umpire’s calls, but they hung around resiliently enough. Both brought up half centuries.
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It has been six years and 31 Test innings since Hope has had a fifty-plus score. The World Test Championship has since, been conceived, and then changed hands thrice. That was in 2019, the same year that Campbell and Hope brought up the highest-ever opening partnership in ODI history of 365 runs against Ireland in Dublin. The two players will be entrusted to do more of the same come Monday.
