Kohli, Rahane stretch India's lead

West Indies' Day 3 graph started with a curve in the upward direction, hit peak ascendancy early in the post-Lunch session before plummeting all the way down by the end of the day that saw India stretch their lead to 260 runs.

Along the way, Virat Kohli and Ajinkya Rahane hit fifties, and are looking set to aim for triple figures should India chose to bat on for another session or two on Day 4, which looks likely.

The promising start to the day - in the form of a nagging partnership between Jason Holder and Miguel Cummins - was effective enough to cut India's overnight lead of 108 to 75, but the West Indies players went into the lunch break knowing fully well that early breakthroughs would be the only way to nudge the steering wheel in Antigua out of India's grasp. Some rub of the green in the post-Lunch session, combined with KL Rahul's change of approach brought the end of both the openers, adding a spring to West Indies' step.

Kemar Roach, who proved to be prickly for India in the first innings too, set up their No.3 batsman with a delivery that nipped back in and went past a gaping bat-pad void left open. The wicket meant India's top-three was wiped out for cheap, and yet their overall lead had already swelled past 150.

West Indies needed their good luck to persist with them in the final session, if they were to break the Kohli-Rahane partnership - that has combined for three hundred-plus and four fifty-plus partnerships in their last eight alliances. On a slow, lifeless surface in Antigua, the two Indian batsmen eased themselves in and stuck to risk-free cricket for most periods to stretch India's lead further, and add yet another 100-plus partnership.

There was again a brief phase when West Indies looked set to claw their way back, when Kemar Roach bent his back and posed a few intruiging questions. But the luck sided with India - and particularly Rahane - this time. He nearly had Rahane out LBW, only for DRS to rule out, and right after, John Campbell's benevolence at cover gave Rahane another life after a leading edge flew towards the fielder. Roach even got the ball to whiz past Kohli's outside edge on multiple occasions - the expression on the Indian captain's face an indication of how well the pacer was bowling. But the three-over spell didn't fetch West Indies any wickets.

India's reward for playing out Roach's testing spell was getting to face an erring Shannon Gabriel and the innocuous part-time spinner Kraigg Brathwaite. Such was the extent of India's comfort from this point on that the only concern that Kohli face against Brathwaite was whether the spinner's arm was being bent beyond the permissable limit.

Jason Holder even threw John Campbell's off-break at the Indian pair, but to no avail. As the Kohli-Rahane pair took India's lead well past 200, Holder brought back Roach, only for them to fail as a group to earn what would've been a rightful breakthrough. Roach continued from where he left off in the previous spell, beat Rahane's outside edge in his first over with a ball that struck him on the front pad. A loud appeal was turned down and there was a hesitation shown towards making a call on whether to challenge the umpire's original ruling. Holder & Co. ran out of time and, to their horror, watched the opportunity they squandered, on the big screen.

At stumps, the Kohli-Rahane pair was still unbroken, and India's lead at 260.

Brief Scores: India 297 & 185/3 (Ajinkya Rahane 53, Virat Kohli 51; Roston Chase 2-69) lead West Indies 222 (Roston Chase 48, Jason Holder 39; Ishant Sharma 5-43) by 260 runs