Pitch changes, Windies do the talking

At the tea break, Shivnarine Chanderpaul was batting 27 while skipper Carl Hooper was on 11. West Indies now lead India by 97 runs with six wickets in hand.

Nehra who had looked ordinary in his first three spells of the day suddenly came roaring in the post lunch session and claimed the most important wickets.

He dismissed Lara off the third ball of his over with the batsman giving a simple return catch while attempting an on-drive. Lara batted for 183 minutes and hit six fours in his 55-run knock.

In the next over, Nehra struck again when Sarwan was caught by Wasim Jaffer at point. Sarwan made 60 off 147 balls with 10 fours during his 213 minute stay at the crease.

Zaheer Khan had given India a perfect start to the day when he sent back Chris Gayle at his overnight score of 14 after West Indies resumed at 33 for one.

But Lara and Sarwan frustrated the Indians for three hours to negate the advantage and put their team, which is trailing the five match series 0-1, on top.

When West Indies resumed at their overnight 33 for one, what India required was an early breakthrough. Zaheer Khan answered India’s call with a beautiful delivery in the second over of the day that struck on the pads of Gayle and caught the batsman plumb in front. Gayle could not add anything to his yesterday’s score of 14.

That was a perfect start to India’s day but unfortunately it was all that the tourists had to show for the entire morning session. Despite bowling a good line and length and being able to trouble both the batsmen on quite a few occasions, wickets eluded the Indians.

Lara was extremely tentative, especially during the early part of his innings and was beaten outside his off-stump a number of times by both Zaheer Khan and Javagal Srinath.

Earlier, India’s frailty on fast, bouncy wickets was exposed once again as they were bundled out for 102. India could bat for only 33.4 overs on the first day as Mervyn Dillon grabbed four wickets and Adam Sanford three.