Antigua: On his first tour to West Indies, Virat Kohli failed with his bat. But when he returned to the Caribbean Islands as the skipper of the Indian cricket team after five years, he went on to score a his maiden double ton in the very first innings of the first Test against the West Indies at Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, North Sound, Antigua on Friday.

Meanwhile, R Ashwin, who was promoted by the captain and coach Anil Kumble up the order too showed some of his class with the bat and scored a ton (113 off 253 balls). Later, Wridhiman Saha (40 off 88 balls) combined well Amit Mishra (53 off 68 balls) to put in the driver’s seat. India finally declared their innings after posting a daunting total of 566/8 on Day 2 of the first Test match.

“It was a great thing to be pushed up the order. I want to thank Anil bhai and Kohli for it,” said Ashwin after his third century.

“I don't get surprised with what I do. I really enjoy my batting. I have been flashy in the past, but I know I have to do a lot of work to get into the top seven or six. Put in a lot of work, learning my off stump, I have never left so many balls in my life. It’s a good pitch. I just had time to bat against West Indies. I came in at 60 for 6 in Kolkata and got a century. VVS did against Australia. The floater has helped me over the last year and having batted on it, I know there is hard work ahead for the bowlers,” said Ashwin.

Talking to BCCI.TV, the Indian captain said that it was a very good feeling to score his maiden double century. “I made my debut here and it wasn’t a memorable series for me. Coming back here and getting a double hundred gives me a lot of satisfaction purely because of the fact that I have missed a couple of big scores in the past. I know I have the ability to get big hundreds. This is my first double hundred in first-class matches in general, so this is something I always wanted to do and I am feeling really grateful today that I was able to cross the mark,” he said.