India are on course for a huge victory after dismissing the West Indies for a paltry 215 in the first innings and then scalping one wicket after enforcing the follow-on, in second Test in Gros Islet, St Lucia, on Monday.
At close on day 3, the West Indies were 43 for one when bad light and rain stopped play 11.3 overs early.
Daren Ganga (24 not out) and Brian Lara (15 not out) offered stubborn resistance as the West Indies attempted a fightback in the second innings after the loss of Chris Gayle (2), who was dismissed by Irfan Pathan in the first over, caught behind.
Anil Kumble took three wickets for 67 to become the fourth highest wicket-taker in Test history as the West Indies were forced to follow-on.
The veteran leg-spinner took his career tally to 520 wickets and moved above West Indies pacer Courtney Walsh in the list of all-time Test wicket-takers.
India took a huge first innings lead of 373, having scored 588 for eight declared in their first innings.
Morning session
In what has evolved into a game of patiently hitting the right lines and lengths and waiting for the pitch, and the frayed nerves of batsmen confronting an imposing total, to do the work, it took 12.5 overs and 41 runs (12 of those to Chris Gayle) for the breakthrough to materialize.
Two deliveries after the seemingly comatose Gayle for once came down the track and wafted the bowler over midwicket for six, Anil Kumble angled a delivery across the left handed opener on a very full length, outside off and turning in fractionally. Gayle parodied a defensive push, staying inside the line of the ball and looking really to leave; the ball turned in just enough to kiss the outer edge and Dhoni, after an initial grab, held on to his nerve, and to the catch (46/106; 106/4).
About time, too - Gayle was, by any decent count, out at least on four separate occasions, more likely five, and kept getting the `benefit' - which brings up a point that increasingly needs making.
At the start of play this morning, commentators Dean Jones and Tony Cozier raised verbal eyebrows at what they termed the inordinate number of LBW decisions in the West Indies innings.
Hold hard right there, people - the wicket, as the same commentators and others have been pointing out, has been staying low - which right there makes the difference between a ball hitting the stumps, as opposed to going over it.
Batsman after batsman has been countering this in the most cynical of fashions - sticking the front foot out, tucking the bat behind the pad, and padding it away as opposed to playing the delivery. Throughout, they have been living on that tiny margin - that the strike will be deemed outside off.
The inordinate amount of pad play is, sooner or later, going to result in error - as made by Ganga, Sarwan and Lara. Ganga in fact is the perfect exemplar - in the same over in which he was taken out, he had previously padded up to a delivery in identical fashion and was very lucky not to be given out; nothing fazed, he did it again and this time, miscalculated the line.
Bottomline? If you use your pads instead of your bat, people, you are going to get out on a low-playing wicket. Four of you have and before this is over, more will.
Why the elaboration? Because this track is going to get even lower. And that invites LBWs even more. Which is not the fault of the bowling side - what India does not need is this kind of calculated `commentary', suggesting that its bowling performance is in doubt.
What needed mentioning - and failed to evoke even a murmur - was Gayle's charmed life. Throughout yesterday, he kept sticking his front foot into line and letting the ball hit it, oftentimes even within the line of the stumps. And he kept getting away - oh, they said, his foot is too far forward; oh, the ball might have bounced over the stumps; oh, there is too much doubt there.
But oh - every single time, five times during 25 overs of play yesterday, the replays showed the strike in line, and the ball going on to hit the stumps.
And it happened again this morning - Anil Kumble, in his first over, got Gayle padding deliberately to a delivery on off drifting to middle; again, the `benefit of doubt' was given'; again, the commentators talked with gusto of the ball turning and bouncing and likely missing leg and again, the volume of commentary petered out when the replay showed the ball going through between middle and leg, hitting three inches below the bail.
So please, can we cut out the innuendo about LBWs? And the dubious headshakes by the likes of Lara yesterday, and Chanderpaul this morning? Because if any team has reason to feel aggrieved it is India - which has had to take Ganga out thrice, and Gayle at least 6 times by any reasonable reckoning, before finally getting rid of them?
Drinks were taken almost immediately after the Gayle dismissal, and immediately after the break, India made another incision - this time, thoughtful bowling combining with intelligent field placing to create the opportunity.
More than in the first Test, Dravid has been experimenting with field placings here. Thus, for Gayle, he has despite conceding boundaries through point been content to open up the point region, inviting the batsman to go square, while placing three slips and two gullies for the miscued square shot. (Against that, in the second hour of play, I thought he could with profit have added a man under Denesh Ramdhin's nose, on the off side, in addition to the slip, gully and short square leg - even if Kumble was not given his line likely to get the dismissal to a catch at silly point/short mid on, a fielder there keeps the batsman from looking to force any delivery on the off, and keeps him pinned further inside his crease).
For Chanderpaul, who from ball one was playing fluidly and doing the bulk of the scoring (25 of the 41 runs scored up until his dismissal), Dravid for the seamers shut down the point region, and opened up cover on the off, and midwicket on the on, inviting the batsman to play in front of the wicket.
The on side was particularly inviting - there was enough space between square leg and mid on to sneak a ten ton truck through. Chanderpaul bit - he looked to come right across his stumps, shut the bat face and work the ball through that gap. Pathan produced a very full delivery almost on yorker length, swinging in late and got the batsman in an awful tangle; the length and late swing beat the shot and thudded into the pad an inch above the bootlaces, nailing Chanderpaul on top of the crease and in front of off, middle and leg. There was no doubt of any kind possible - but that didn't stop the batsman from grimacing and shaking his head all the way back home (30/79; 106/5).
India's focus throughout the session was on rotating seamers from the end with a wind assist, and using Kumble and Sehwag from the other end into a breeze that gave both bowlers a hint of drift.
The West Indies, right through this innings, have made the cardinal error of focusing on crease occupation without making the runs to show. The pitch is lower and slower, yes, but not different from the one on which India made 227 for the loss of four wickets, one of them a tail-ender, on day two.
It is a trap India has fallen into, in the past - of opting for grim defense, even going against the natural grain to do so. It is interesting to see, here, that India does not have a monopoly on silliness - Dwayne Bravo, a natural stroke player who has the ability to spread fields, has after starting off with two clean strikes off Kumble, been blocking grimly to the spinners while a slip, silly mid off, short square leg and short midwicket surround him on all sides.
He can conceivably do that for all of another session - but unless runs come at the same time, it is analogous to a man needing to climb a mountain, content to jog in place on the lowermost slope.
The session produced just 74 runs, for the loss of two wickets, in 29 overs; a scoring rate of 2.55 that has for all that determined defense with the pads left the Windies only deeper in the hole. Incidentally, while on pad play, it is interesting to note that Bravo, who throughout his innings has been playing with the bat, not pad, does not as yet have a single appeal against his name - not even a hopeful one.
In passing, for the conspiracy theorists out there, the reason Harbhajan Singh did not make the starting line up was because he reported still not fully fit on the morning of the match, negating the team's original intention of going in with a batsman short. The grass on the track, which inveigled the home side to actually play five seamers and no spinners, decided the fourth bowling slot in favor of VRV Singh rather than the as yet untried in Tests Ramesh Powar; that particular choice was made easier by the fact that Sehwag appeared to have struck a good vein of bowling form.
One other point that might be worth mentioning - during the ODIs, East Zone's Sanjib Biswal doubled up in the capacity of manager and tour selector. For the Test leg of the tour, the manager is the guy who represents Universities (and provided the Pawar faction with a crucial vote - another instance of the post of manager being used, as it always has been, to reward loyalists) and the on-tour selector is VB Chandrasekhar, who along with coach, captain, and vice captain pick the playing eleven.
Post-Lunch session
For India, it was a question of winkling wickets out, one at a time; for the West Indies a case of chipping away at the mountain, in a bid to reduce the size of the climb in the second innings.
The last ball of the 11th over after resumption produced the breakthrough. Anil Kumble initially focused on quick flippers, looking for the LBW but was thwarted by two batsmen prepared to put bat in front of pad.
The bowler changed strategy, looking for more flight and turn seeking the edge - and struck, when a flighted delivery full on leg squared Bravo up in defense, the ball turning sharper than norm to find the edge and fly to Dravid at first slip for a reflexive catch well held (25/84; 167/6).
The single biggest problem for the West Indies in this innings has been a propensity to lose wickets in pairs; that trend continued here when, two overs later, Munaf Patel began with a delivery a touch quicker and fuller outside off, swinging away late.
Denesh Ramdhin, who had batted with positive intent, looked to drive but failed to get his front foot across in time; the shot found the edge and flew low for Dhoni to dive and hold to his left (30/83; 178/7).
While Ian Bradshaw held his own at one end, Jerome Taylor came out with positive intent, and in the bowler's 11th over, drilled him for a four first ball, slapping it back past Sehwag with such venom the ball was gone before the bowler could reflexively throw his hand up, and then taking the next ball from line of off, and heaving it over long on for a six to follow up. And in the bowler's next over, Taylor launched into as good a cover drive as you would want to see - raising the tangential question, when did the pitch, which has had everyone rubbishing it, improve quite so much?
Taylor's spree, though, ended when he tried yet again to swing one from line of off over long on; this time, the ball was closer to the bat and flatter, the hit therefore lacked in carry, and went straight to Mohammad Kaif posted in the deep after the previous six in that direction (23/36; 209/8).
In his next over, Sehwag tossed one further up, halfway inside the crease. Pedro Collins, with no movement whatsoever, poked at it, and got the outer edge to Dravid, who did well to stay low and hold (0/5; 210/9 Windies).
On the stroke of tea, Sehwag ended the West Indies innings with a ball tossed up at the left handed Bradshaw; the batsman drove hard at it and Sehwag dived to his right full stretch to pull off a remarkable reflex catch, ending the West Indies innings on 215.
India ended the half-way stage of this match ahead by 373 runs. Four of the five bowlers used (Yuvraj bowled merely one over) picked up wickets; the fifth, VRV Singh, bowled a controlled spell either side of lunch to keep the pressure going.
For West Indies, bowled out inside 86 overs, no batsman managed a 50 on a pitch where three Indian batsmen made 100s; that, plus the lack of partnerships of any substance, contributed to the position they find themselves in now.
212 overs, minimum, remain in this game - and it is hard to see more than one possible result from here; a very distant outside bet would be on the West Indies digging deep, against what punditry has characterized as a popgun attack, and batting through two days and a session to save the game.
Post-Tea session
India's enforcing the follow on at the tea break raised a surprising amount of discussion, though it is not clear why.
When Rahul Dravid pulled the plug on his seamers as soon as Munaf Patel took out Denesh Ramdhin in the middle session (Ramdhin had been batting like a pro against the spinners at that point) and stayed with spin, even using Yuvraj rather than revert to a seamer, it was clear enough he was enforcing the follow on.
A couple of factors would have gone into the decision. Firstly, captains everywhere tend to check with their bowlers, to ask them if they were feeling good enough, physically, to go - or whether they needed a break.
An example that comes immediately to mind is the much-debated decision not to enforce the follow on against New Zealand in a home Test a while ago - a decision that funnily enough attracted murmurs of match-fixing, but was in fact taken because Javagal Srinath and his fellow bowlers suggested they could use a bit of a breather.
Secondly, a check of the Yahoo weather forecast last night indicated plenty of rain over the next couple of days - bringing with it the possibility of much time lost. Given that, had Dravid opted to bat for the rest of the day, and then found say day four wiped out due to rain, he would have been pilloried for his `defensive' captaincy.
But more than bad PR, the factor that would have determined the decision would have been the state of mind of the bowlers - and since they bowled just under 85 overs in the first innings, it seems a fair call that they would have opted to go again in the final session, before getting an overnight breather.
For once, Chris Gayle in four innings, Chris Gayle had only one life to live - and he lost it off the third ball of the second innings, when Irfan Pathan bowled one on a full length in the channel. Gayle was rooted as he pushed at it; late seam away got the edge and Dhoni did well to hold as the ball died on him (2/3; 2/1).
In passing, the way Dhoni held that catch underlines a problem the Indians appear not to have taken on board - the wicket is dying by the hour; everything is slowing down. Ergo, edges won't have quite the force they used to earlier in this game - and yet, the keeper and slips have been standing as far back as they were in the final session of day two. It is one of the factors they never quite seem to heed - and since traditionally the keeper decides where he stands, and the slips have to take a cue from that, it might be time this fact was keyed into Dhoni's mindset by some kindly soul.
In a surprise move, Brian Lara opted to walk in at first drop - a case of captaining from the front, quite commendable too given that over the three innings in this Test series thus far he hasn't been able to fire.
The move came within a coat of varnish of failing - off the very first ball he faced off Pathan, the Windies skipper was turned inside out by a ball on middle swinging away late and big; he pushed at it and managed only the inner edge flashing dangerously past his off stump to the fence behind the keeper.
From that point on, Lara and Darren Ganga dug deep, while the Indian bowlers kept their lines and lengths up, and played the patience game.
When rain drove everyone off the field, the Windies had limped to 43/1 in 17.3 overs - still trailing by 330 runs with two days - 180 overs, minimum - to go in play.
The pitch has noticeably eased off a touch - in much the same way it did in Antigua, when India batted in its second innings and found conditions to its liking. While this one is lower and slower than Antigua, indications are the ball won't scoot through ankle height quite as much, except on the odd occasion it hits one of the prefabricated patches.
None of that makes batting a picnic - what it does is challenge the nerve, concentration, and patience of both batsmen and bowlers. The former cannot hit through with any degree of insouciance - Lara's 15 runs, which include that edged four, have come off 50 deliveries for instance, of which the master bat has failed to score off 41 deliveries.
The bowlers, for their part, have no magic bullets at their disposal - no sudden bounce, no undue turn, no exaggerated seam, no overt swing. What they do have is the knowledge that if they can run in and bowl wicket to wicket, over after over after over without flagging or trying too many things and losing the main plot in the process, they'll win through - even if the process leaves them totally exhausted.
Simply put, this is now a test of endurance, of fortitude, as much as it is of skill. Unless the weather takes big bites out of the time remaining, it is difficult to see it end in anything other than an Indian win.
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