Kumble claims five as West Indies crumble

Chennai, October 17: A five-wicket haul in a Test match is always great, regardless of how poor the opposition is, as the West Indies were on the first day of the second Test at the Chidambaram Stadium here.

While India went in with the same team that had played the first Test, the West Indies made two changes, bringing in debutants Gareth Breese for Mahendra Nagamootoo and Jermaine Lawson for Cameron Cuffy. Considering how the pitches here behave, maybe they should have played both the spinners and done away with a medium-pacer.

The plot took a different turn from Mumbai in the morning, as Carl Hooper won the toss and elected to bat. Thereafter, it was the same story as the visitors relinquished whatever advantage they had garnered as they were dismissed for a paltry 167 in 79.3 overs. Kumble returned figures of five for 30 in 23.3 overs while Harbhajan Singh chipped in with three for 56.

At stumps, India were 31 for no loss, with the patient Sanjay Bangar and the whirlwind Virender Sehwag at the crease.

The West Indies batsmen simply do not seem to have a clue about what they should do out there. They began as if playing the last session of a match they have to save, blocking or leaving practically everything. The first half-hour produced just five runs and the entire morning session was worth just 45. Assuming they knew that the spinners would be on pretty quickly and the pitch would begin acting funny by the end of the day, one would have assumed that they would attack some more, especially as they were not to badly off wicket-wise at lunch.

Openers Chris Gayle and Wavell Hinds hardly ever attacked the quicks, apart from one over from part-timer Sanjay Bangar when Gayle got three boundaries. Hinds did try to go after Harbhajan, but with no consistency.

Gayle scored 23, settled down, and then played a false shot off Harbhajan to be dismissed. Hinds and Ramnaresh Sarwan saw them out till lunch but that break also did not bring any inspiring stuff.

The first of Kumble's was lucky for the bowler, as Sri Lankan umpire Asoka de Silva gave Hinds out on a delivery that would have missed the off-stump by a wide margin. Sarwan was blasted out by Javagal Srinath and that brought together the experienced pair of Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Hooper.

But these two also could not break the shackles. Hooper did attempt to go after the scoring a few good boundaries off both the seamers and spinners, but was completely fooled by a slower one from Zaheer Khan for Sourav Ganguly to take a decent catch.

The bounce on the pitch, erratic most of the day, became quite vicious at the pavilion end after tea and Kumble made the most of it. One took off from good length to catch Chanderpaul by surprise. Parthiv Patel behind the stumps took a sharp catch.

After that, it was a procession, and even umpire David Shepherd's largesse to Breese was not enough for the West Indians to capitalise.

Like with many visiting teams, all the spinners had to do was to keep the ball up and land it at the right spot. The pitch, and the inane batting, took care of the rest.