Scorecard

Post-Lunch sesion

This session of play was bizarre - and not for the way the players played, but more for the way the commentators talked it through.

Every single one seemed to be of the opinion that India should have just blasted away and declared - clearly, the dichotomy in those words missed their minds. For instance, if the conditions are conducive to India blasting away, whence comes the presumption that the West Indies with Gayle, Lara, Bravo et al cannot do likewise?

The best comment on the nature of the pitch at this point was made by Brian Lara - when, after the lunch break, with a thick cloud cover overhead, a stiff breeze blowing across the pitch and light diminishing, he opted to bowl Gayle and Sarwan, rather than use any of the five seam bowlers at his disposal.

Keep an eye on that number - five bowlers, and none of them thought good enough to bowl at the start of a session, with one batsman on zero. Would you, as captain, willfully present such a track to the opposition to bat on?

Or would you try and spend as much time as possible in the middle, with a twin objective - firstly, to make sure you only need to bat the one time; secondly, to allow the heat to work on the pitch that much longer (this session, incidentally, saw the most dramatic instance of what I spoke of in the first session - the odd uneven bounce; Bradshaw here bowling a grubber to Kaif that pitched midway, and scooted through at ankle height, indicating a disintegration of the wicket); and finally, to push the game into that indeterminate period, towards close, when the fielding side is tired from two days out in the sun, and force them to negotiate a tricky hour of play, while keeping the new ball still relatively fresh for the third morning?

If in fact this was how the Indians scoped it out, their play post lunch made sense - neither Kaif nor Dhoni looked to explode. There was just Pathan left in the hut with bat skill; the left arm seamer's recent form has been a touch dodgy; his confidence has been as low as it is possible to get, to the extent that he asked the team management to give him a break in the first Test so he could get his mind back together.

Given that, it was imperative for the two batsmen in the middle to play time as well as runs, and not get out too early in the proceedings. Best laid plans and all that - get out early is precisely what Dhoni managed to do, though.

He is not the sort of player to play the waiting game. When he is let loose, he hits at anything in his zone; ask him to bat judiciously, and his regular strokes are shelved, and the odd loose one played.

Here, he managed to play maidens off Chris Gayle; when a huge rain cloud hovered over the ground, the batsmen took the light offered. But the first ball after the interruption, bowled by Ian Bradshaw, was short, it was wide and going wider on the angle and Dhoni, almost in a reprise of the Dravid dismissal before lunch, lunged a long way over to get the toe of his bat to the ball, and pat it to point in a needless dismissal (9/34; India 517/6).

Pathan took over, and joined Kaif in batting sensibly and within themselves, inching the score along with singles, hard run twos and just the odd boundary. The left hander was just about beginning to show a semblance of form with the bat, however, and had swept Gayle with good timing to the midwicket fence, when he fell - chasing the last ball of the same over, wide of off and turning wider, and getting the toe (third successive dismissal, incidentally, off that part of the bat) of the bat to point (19/52; 555/7).

In between all this, Kaif progressed with calm assurance. A Sarwan full toss, banged over to the midwicket fence, got him to his first Test century (166 balls, 10 fours) and also brought up India's 500. He collected the applause from the dressing room, the hug from his partner Dhoni, and promptly took fresh guard and started all over again.

For a batsman who hasn't yet cemented his place in the side, the knock albeit in not-so-demanding conditions must come like a tonic. Getting that first Test 100 - after missing by 9 against England [Images] in Nagpur - and being able to continue with nary a false step, could well be the confidence boost he has looked in need off in this form of the game; it will be interesting to watch how well he parlays this in future outings.

Meanwhile, the pitch continued to display its vagaries - and finally, the commentators took note, as a Gayle delivery sprayed dirt off the track from good length. "That is interesting," went Jeremy Coney, and Ian Bishop wonders whether India has batted on the best part of the pitch. And then the two talk of why India would now want to bat on - conveniently ignoring the chorus they were setting up just moments before, for a declaration.

Judging by the way they have played thus far, you would have to think the Indians have read this track to a nicety - they are banking on the fact that it will break up and produce more uneven bounce - which not only suits their main strike bowler Kumble to a T, but also works for the two right arm seamers landing within the stumps, and for the left armer looking to bend the ball back in; that their game plan in consequence should be to deny Windies conducive batting conditions for as long as they can, then make them climb a mountain with slippery underfoot conditions.

The session produced 99 runs in 32 overs for the loss of Dhoni and Pathan. Look for the Indians to try and play through at least the first hour after tea - ideally, declaring with 8, 10 tops, overs to bowl at the Windies this evening.

Post-Tea session

13 deliveries after tea, Jerome Taylor got Anil Kumble to chop one onto his stumps, bowling tightly in the corridor and getting it to lift just enough to cramp the attempted forcing shot through point (14/31; India 588/8).

Immediately, Rahul Dravid applied the closure, giving the West Indies 24 overs to negotiate before close. Mohammad Kaif remained unbeaten for a classically compiled maiden Test ton, going in on 148 off 243 deliveries.

And then a funny thing happened - under cover of the cloak of invisibility, a bunch of blokes came out, carefully removed the strip on which they had been playing all that while, and substituted another one - a minefield, this, full of unknown horrors.

Or so you had to think -- - on the same track on which the commentators were unanimously castigating the Indians for not going hell for leather despite a 4-plus run rate, the West Indies came out and struggled to put bat to ball.

The two Indian new ball bowlers produced an exhibition that indicated they had been watching proceedings pretty closely. On a track where the bounce is questionable (and even given that variable bounce is not that much of a factor with the hard new ball), the two homed in on the stumps, bowling tight wicket to wicket lines to force the batsmen to play at almost everything.

It is what the Windies bowlers consistently failed to do; the Indian seamers apparently had done their homework while watching their mates pile up runs.

Chris Gayle, as always, got the mandatory life (in the case of this innings, two already inside the first five overs). Pathan in his first over set him up very nicely, first going down the off channel, setting Gayle up to come forward and across and push at his deliveries.

Having got the batsman doing that by rote, he then arrowed one in on the stumps; Gayle again moved into that push, got the ball on the pad, and got the benefit of mythical doubt. As per usual, he celebrated by cracking the next ball through point for four.

At the other end, Munaf Patel produced a lovely spell. He started with a maiden, bowling six of six in the channel outside off challenging Ganga to drive at him. Dravid here produced an interesting field setting - no point for either Gayle or Darren Ganga; the ploy likely being that the Indians don't think hitting square is a percentage shot on a track where the odd ball stays low, and want to encourage both batsmen to try.

Ganga nearly fell into the trap; in that first over from Patel he flashed and missed. In the bowler's sixth over, Munaf found the edge - and saw it flash wide of Wasim Jaffar at third slip. So the bowler straightened his line a trifle, and found the clear edge again - and this time, VVS Laxman at second slip did his imitation of a Madame Tussaud's waxwork as the ball flashed between him and Jaffar, and to his right.

All of this produced a readjustment - Dravid moved Jaffar to first slip and took up position at third.

At the other end, in the fifth over Pathan again nailed Gayle in front of middle and leg - with the pitch not bouncing, that was heading to the middle of leg stump (as Hawkeye confirmed), but again, the batsman got the benefit. Elsewhere, since he wasn't being given out LBW, Gayle had a shot at bowling himself - Munaf Patel angled one across, hit the line an inch outside off and straightened the ball and Gayle left it alone, for the ball to taste varnish from off stump on its way through.

It was scratchy cricket, played around a little interruption for a drizzle, and it indicated just how difficult this innings is going to be, under the weight of the runs on the board. Against that, the first 9 overs produced 7 fours (in a score of 36), indicating that runs could still be made, if you had the patience to wait for the error, and the skill to negotiate the good stuff.

Finally, the 10th over produced the wicket that had been threatening all along. Patel had stayed relentlessly on line of the stumps (in the previous over, all six deliveries were on line and would have hit the stumps if the batsman hadn't intervened); Ganga came forward with bat tucked behind pad, a ploy he used, and was lucky to get away with, twice before in this knock. This time, there was not even a hair's breadth of doubt - the strike was in line, the ball was in line, and the stumps were in danger of being disarrayed (16/33; 36/1).

And then, Patel really hit the jackpot - the very first ball Ramnaresh Sarwan got was a carbon copy of the delivery to Ganga. Very straight, very full, very much on line of off and middle. Sarwan came too far across, couldn't get his bat around his pad, and was nailed in front of middle (0/1; 36/2).

In the 11th over, Pathan deviated from the game plan, bowling too short too often, and was creamed for successive boundaries by Gayle first through cover point, then to the third man fence. Dravid promptly switched him off, and brought Kumble on in the 12th over. Pathan's first spell was a mixed bag - some very good deliveries, way better than he had bowled in recent times, but not the consistency his partner showed at the other end.

Lara, who seemed physically under par judging by his limping second run to a Gayle stroke before he had opened his own account, got going with a fluent drive through cover point off Munaf Patel.

In his first over, Kumble indicated what was to come - six balls out of six landed within the three stumps and on the very full length; ball after ball took the tall Gayle on the pads. The batsman on each occasion had a big stride out, and that saved him. In his second over, against the shorter Lara, Kumble homed in on that line and length again and sure enough, thudded into the batsman's pad to invite the clear decision (7/14; 55/3).

Patel's immaculate first spell of 8-3-20-2 ended finally; VRV Singh took over in the 18th over of the innings and began with a maiden; the pressure stayed right on. A couple of steady overs later, with play winding down, Dravid switched him out and brought Sehwag on, to pair with Kumble.

At the other end, Kumble nailed Gayle with a straight one, and again the weird thing of `height factor' and `long stride' were used to explain why the batsman was still in after at least four clear shouts - apparently there is an unwritten rule that anyone over 6 feet can't be given out in that particular fashion.

In the final over of the day, Kumble again hit the right line and length - and this time, Chanderpaul was lucky to get off on benefit-of-doubt grounds, to a ball heading onto off stump of all things. All that remains is for them to now fine the Indians for appealing so much and making their lives hell.

The Windies finished on 65/3 at stumps in 25 overs; an indication of the escalating pressure is afforded by the fact that the last 13 of those overs produced 15 runs, including two Kumble no-balls in the final over.

The game is nicely set up now - a grim, uphill struggle awaits the home team tomorrow morning on a pitch that will only get lower as the game goes on, in the process removing even that `benefit of doubt' from the equation.