Clive Lloyd, Viv Richards, Brian Lara and the other West Indies greats must have presented their observations about the current state of Caribbean cricket at the strategic summit in August, following the side’s drubbing against Australia
at home.
Despite the greats’ prescriptions, the West Indies continue to abysmal.
On Day I of the opening Test against India in Ahmedabad, the visitors won the toss on a good batting surface, but Mohammed Siraj and Jasprit Bumrah combined to bowl the Windies out for a paltry 162.
Thereafter, the in-form KL Rahul struck a measured half-century as India expectedly find themselves in a comfortable position, reaching 121/2 at stumps on Thursday.
Siraj (4/40) and Bumrah (3/32) were the architects of India’s dominating show on a day when rain caused a brief disruption to the proceedings. At the end of the first day’s play, Rahul was batting on 53 off 114 balls, including six fours, accompanied by India captain Shubman Gill on 18.
India lost Yashasvi Jaiswal (36) after his 68-run opening stand with Rahul before Sai Sudharsan (7) soon followed. The hosts, though, remained largely unchallenged on the opening day of the two-Test series.
It was one-way traffic all the way through from the Indian bowlers as they were once again admirably led by Siraj, as they shot the visitors out for a paltry total. Siraj couldn’t complete a much-deserved five-for but caused consistent trouble for the Caribbean batters.
Siraj produced the ball of the innings after Lunch when he angled one into the right-handed Roston Chase (24), who was squared up and an outside edge was collected by wicketkeeper Dhruv Jurel. Siraj took three wickets upfront in a lethal seven-over spell in the first session and added one more post-Lunch, but came close twice to complete his fifer.
Pace spearhead Bumrah also found his rhythm with the red ball, nailing a couple of yorkers to return 14-3-42-3.
Kuldeep Yadav (2/25), in his first Test in almost a year, produced a jaffa to dismiss Shai Hope earlier in the morning session and took the final wicket of the innings when he got Jomel Warrican (8) caught behind reverse-sweeping.
Washington Sundar, the last of India’s bowlers to have been introduced into the attack, returned figures of 1/9.
Justin Greaves top-scored for the Windies with 32.