Related Links : India in West Indies : Scorecard
The new resurgent West Indies team carried their One Dayers performance into the longer version of the game as well as India found it hard to get going on the opening day of the 1st Test Match at the Antigua Recreation Ground in St.John’s. India after electing to bat first struggled to get the ball off the turf and ended up at an embarrassing 235 for 9 at Stumps. It was only Skipper Rahul Dravid, who made a respectable score of 49 and even though Sehwag had made 36, his innings was full of reckless shots that always kept the bowlers interested. The damage was done by Corey Collymore and Dwayne Bravo who swung the ball late in both directions. India could neither get the runs coming nor did they kill the time in the middle. The momentum in this Test Match is with the West Indies now and a couple of big partnerships when they bat should get them in full control of this match.
India opted for a pace battery to shake up the West Indies batting by including the inexperienced trio of Sreesanth, Munaf Patel and Vikram Singh, who was given a Test Cap. Just one spinner was picked in the form of Anil Kumble. That meant that India had dropped Irfan Pathan and Harbhajan Singh, two of its most significant players in recent times. There wasn’t much surprises in the West Indies line up except for the exclusion of Jerome Taylor, who had to miss out in favour of the inform Ian Bradshaw. India got off to a poor start losing Wasim Jaffer to a peach of a delivery from Fidel Edwards that had the pace, bounce and the required away movement to produce the outside edge. Jaffer did not do help his cause by not getting into the line of the ball completely and ended up playing the ball on his middle stump rather than meeting it at the offstump. VVS Laxman was promoted up the order as Rahul Dravid opted to take the Sachin Tendulkar spot of No.4. Sehwag did get going, but he was playing some loose cricket and was looking dangerous for both the sides. He did get the boundaries going as Bradshaw struggled with his direction often sliding onto the pads of the right handers. It was a bowling change that made the difference for Brian Lara as Collymore bowled a perfect outswinger in his very first ball that forced Sehwag to play at that and nick it to Lara at 2nd slip. With India at 51 for 2, it was plenty of repair work by its two most experienced batsmen in VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid. Both these batsmen had a challenging time as Collymore kept testing them with both outswingers and inswingers. Dwayne Bravo, the man with the golden arm for West Indies in the recent one dayers made lunch taste much better for his side as he got Laxman (29) out through a casual drive played away from his body. And at Lunch, it was a miserable 74 for 3 for India and the runs had come after 27 overs of struggle.
After Lunch, the partnership between Dravid and Yuvraj looked to be a fighting one and looked one that would get India back on a safe track. The West Indies pacers continued to beat the bat on a regular basis and it just looked as a matter of time before Yuvraj was consumed, which he was but for a sitter dropped by Chanderpaul at 3rd slip. Fidel Edwards was the unfortunate bowler who did all he could to produce the outside edge. It wasn’t pace that got Yuvraj out but it was once again Dave Mohammed who had foxed Yuvraj with his chinaman that hurried onto the left hander and kept slightly low. Yuvraj (23) was bowled as he was looking to play against the turn. Down and out were India at 126 for 4 and Kaif did scratch around with his skipper and he was removed by Dwayne Bravo’s late inswinger. Kaif (13) was playing for the away movement but the ball held its line and it was an inside edge, that was snapped up by the Keeper. Next to go was Dhoni, who was taken care by Corey Collymore’s late outswinger. Dhoni played a poor stroke outside the offstump to be caught at 2nd slip by Brian Lara. India would have got few useful runs had Dhoni batted for atleast an hour but that wasn’t the case as he got out scoring 19 having played just 27 balls. Dravid soon gave away his fight as he got out fending a delivery that lifted off the track from Collymore. The extra bounce had done the trick for Collymore, but he was lucky to have got away with the overstepping he had done to generate the extra sting in that short delivery. Dravid grinded the West Indies attack for 173 balls, but his innings did not get the runs that were required for the Indians. Anil Kumble and Sreesanth put on a fighting stand after that to add 47 valuable runs for the 8th wicket. Kumble was done in by the extra bounce as he chopped Bravo’s rising delivery onto his stumps. Just before the close of play, West Indies managed to pick up one more wicket that of VRV Singh, who got himself out playing an agricultural shot.
The 2nd new ball is just 8 overs old and it should be good enough to take the remaining one wicket of India tomorrow morning. With the batsmen flopping, its upto the inexperienced Indian attack to make something out of this match for India. A lot depends on Anil Kumble as he would be having plenty of work load ahead in this Test Match. There is turn and bounce to keep him going but he will have to get the support from the other end as well. For the West Indies, Corey Collymore was the pick of the bowlers taking three big wickets and Bravo sustained the pressure by picking up 4 wickets and he might be encouraged by Lara to take his 5th wicket.