Ind 190/5 on second day of second Test against WI

Chennai, October 18: West Indies clawed their way back into the game as the Indians finished the truncated day of the second Test at the Chidambaram Stadium here on Friday at 190 for five, not a very happy position after being 93 for no loss at a stage.

The entire morning session was wasted as dampness on the bowlers' run-up and practice pitches denied any play. The game began at 12.10 p.m.

The Indians, looking so good till Virender Sehwag was at the crease, suddenly seemed to lose the script, thanks to some good bowling, indifferent shot selection, and one rank bad decision by umpire Asoka de Silva.

Sehwag was rampant early on, and Lawson and the other debutant Gareth Breese were at the receiving end.

Sehwag helped himself to three boundaries from one Lawson over, and then blasted Breese over the fence twice in his first over in Test cricket, the second six bringing the Delhi batsman his half-century.

He cracked another six in Breese's next over, but then seemed to go into a shell.

Part of the credit for this should go to the medium-pacers, beginning with left-armer Pedro Collins.

He gave Sehwag as much trouble as the batsman has had in the recent past, with the short stuff directed on and outside the off-stump putting him on the back foot.

This was where Sehwag was caught when Collins then bowled a fuller length, and the leg-cutter knocked out his off-stump.

Collins' partner in crime was young Lawson, and he to had Sanjay Bangar and Rahul Dravid in a fair amount of trouble.

His reward came in the shape of Dravid's wicket, as the batsman allowed a neat off-cutter to go through the gate to his off-stump as well.

Bangar hung out a lame bat to Mervyn Dillon thereafter to offer Carl Hooper an easy catch, and in came Sourav Ganguly.

And out he went. The first ball from Dillon took a huge deflection off the bat and thudded into the pads. Up went the Caribbeans and De Silva, to Ganguly's horror and disgust, nodded and raised his finger.

Ganguly is unlikely to send De Silva any flowers on his birthday.This is not the first time that the Sri Lankan has given the Indian skipper a raw deal.

The sequence goes back to last year and the third Test against Sri Lanka in Colombo, followed by the verdict in Mumbai in the first Test of this series, and now this.

A decision again advertising that there is little 'elite' about the ICC umpires' panel.

Then came Lawson's second moment of glory. Another off-cutter saw Tendulkar trying a cute glide down to third man, and he took his eyes off the ball practically before it pitched.

The ball moved just enough to the inner edge rather than the face of the bat, and then onto the stumps.

The Indian batting was a strange sight on Friday. Beginning with a bang, they somehow managed to work themselves into an ugly corner.

None of the batsmen after Sehwag really managed to dominate. A class example is the fact that between Tendulkar's fifth and last boundary and VVS Laxman's first hit to the fence, there was a difference of 119 balls. Tendulkar seemed to have set his eyes on his fifth century in six Tests here, while Dravid was focussed at his fifth straight Test hundred.

While doing so, both forgot to focus on the ball and none of the landmarks was achieved.

India would have been in even deeper trouble had Sehwag's edge to slip been held by Chris Gayle in the afternoon. Tendulkar too was dropped off Hooper, a valiant effort by Shivnarine Chanderpaul just failing.