India, having scored 263/7 in their first innings, appeared in danger of letting the match slip when Mishra (10-2-40-2), guilty of conceding one too many in the first game, got Kieron Pollard to miscue a slog sweep in the 29th over.
With the brilliant Dwayne Smith at the other end, Pollard had exhibited uncharacteristic patience in a second-wicket partnership which was slowly yet surely shutting India out of the game. Yet that one wicket exposed old West Indies frailties as Mishra kept tightening his stranglehold.
Roles were reversed as Marlon Samuels, who engineered a West Indies win in Kochi and hit Mishra for 40 runs off 28 balls, struggled to score.
Here, Mishra bowled successive maidens to the batsman, who eventually lost his wicket to Umesh Yadav after a 38-ball 16 which completely derailed the Windies innings.
Mishra wasn't done yet, coming back to remove Ramdin with the Windies needing 75 from 59, and any remaining semblance of a fight promptly deserted Dwayne Bravo's men.
Ravindra Jadeja cashed in gleefully even as dew made gripping the ball tough. The collapse, with the Windies sinking from 170/2 to 215 all out, showcased the mental frailties of a side which has consistently struggled to marry flair with grit.
Mishra wasn't the only one to delight India with the ball, pacer Mohammed Shami (9.3-0-36-4) being the other hero of the day and the person who denied Smith a well-deserved century.
The eventual 48-run defeat would have left the Windies gutted, since for large parts of the game their skipper Dwayne Bravo's ingenuity ensured they were consistently out planning and outsmarting India.
The decision to open with Darren Bravo, the move up the order for Pollard, the slower ones which strangled India in the last 15 overs of their innings all seemed well-thought out strategies which India had failed to account for.
Yet, the moves which mattered most in the end came from India, like choosing to play Mishra again and demoting Virat Kohli (62; 78b, 5x4), who finally managed to get some runs under his belt.
Two days after former India captain Sunil Gavaskar suggested that Kohli should drop down from his usual No. 3 slot, the Indian team management duly obliged after Dhoni won the toss, sending Ambati Rayudu in ahead of the struggling Kohli on an often-tricky, often-sluggish Kotla surface which made batting seem difficult at times.
Kohli responded by anchoring the innings at No. 4 and stitching together a 105-run partnership off 115 balls with a more ebullient Suresh Raina (62 off 60; 5x4, 2x6), enabling the team to shake off an early-innings stupor against some canny West Indies bowling.
As usual MS Dhoni (51 not out off 40b, 5x4, 1x6) was the late-order aggressor who made all the difference to the eventual score, though the Windies bowlers did a good job of keeping things quiet in the end overs.
It didn't matter, though, as their batsmen gave up the ghost when Mishra threatened to turn the tide.
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