WHILE Shivnarine Chanderpaul once again proved his worth and remained the mainstay and backbone of the West Indies team, batting his twenty-fourth Test century in the first innings and an invaluable 47 in the second, those significant and heroic contributions came to nought when West Indies lost the Airtel First Test to India at the Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium on Wednesday. Chanderpaul’s heroism in difficult circumstances provided the impetus and backbone for West Indies challenging first-innings total of 304 while a series of freakish dismissals, coupled with injudicious batting, allowed West Indies to perform beyond expectations to restrict the powerful Indian batting line-up to 209, thereby enjoyed a very healthy lead of 95 runs.
However, the West Indies inexperienced top order failed to produce anything substantial and found themselves reeling at 84 for 7 before Chanderpaul (47 with 7x4s off 58 balls) produced another fighting knock and inspired skipper Darren Sammy to produce a cameo (42 with one six and 5x4s off 37 balls) which helped restore some respectability and a chance to create history and beat India at home in the opening Test of the three-match series.
However, West Indies were back to their old ways and the team succumbed to the wiles of debutant off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin (6 for 47) folded up for 180 in the second innings to hold an overall lead of 275.
Only another batting debacle by the Indian batsmen or freakish dismissals will show that the victory target of 276 was insurmountable. But India’s fourth highest run-chase for victory was achieved with the lost of five wickets and provided the Indians with something to build their confidence and momentum for the rest of the series. They reached the target with the loss of five wickets with their legend Sachin Tendulkar being the top scorer with a determined 76 that contained ten attractive fours off 148 balls.
Tendulkar forged two important partnerships of 67 runs with Rahul Dravid (31 with 3 fours off 101 balls) and 71 with VVS Laxman (58 not out with 6 fours off 105 balls) for the third- and fourth-wicket partnerships respectively.
The fourth wicket was crucial after Fidel Edwards ripped apart Dravid’s stumps with a beauty on resumption of play for the fourth day as West Indies were hoping to stage a remarkable turnaround of fortunes.
But it was not to be even as Devendra Bishoo got the prized wicket of Tendulkar with 43 runs to get to secure the victory. Yuvraj Singh partnered Laxman to ease the tension and gifted his wicket to Sammy with only the solitary run required to celebrate success India’s thirteenth Test victory over West Indies in 80 Tests. They lost 30 and 43 were drawn.
Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his team rekindled the faith and hope for Test match cricket in India, following their recent disastrous tour to England where they were humiliated and lost the ICC ranked number-one spot in the Test ratings.
For Dhoni, it was his 16th Test victory at the helm out of 32 Tests for a fifty percent success rate. His brilliant leadership chart took a big plunge when they lost all four Tests against England earlier this year. During his tenure, India lost seven matches including those against England while nine ended as drawn affairs.
For their latest victory; India depended on their three most experienced and accomplished batsmen Dravid, multiple-world record holder Tendulkar and Laxman to register a come-from-behind victory which looked out of the reckoning when they were dismissed for 209 in their first innings after West Indies were led by Chanderpaul to their third innings total of over 300 runs in the last four Test matches.
While everyone, apart from Sehwag, Tendulkar and Laxman, struggled to bat with fluency on the docile track; Chanderpaul displayed his undoubted class and mastery on unpredictable pitches as he had done throughout his seventeen-year international career.
His invaluable 118 in the first innings helped the tourists to amass a challenging 309 on a very tricky pitch that made strokeplay a luxury while players’ batsmanship became a real test of patience and application of the highest order.
With his 24th Test century, he equalled Sir Vivian Richards’ career tally and in joint third on the all-time West Indies list of Test centurions, headed by Brian Charles Lara with 34 (131 Tests) and Sir Garry Sobers with 26 (93 Tests).
Chanderpaul, batting at the number five position in the West Indies inexperienced batting line-up, has his class and experience wasted. He should be utilised at the number four position to partner the number three Kirk Edwards or one of the openers as he demonstrated with Kraigg Brathwaite (63) when together they fashioned a face-saving 108 for the fourth-wicket partnership in the first innings of this match.
West Indies released their grip on the match with their pathetic batting display in the second innings and lost a golden opportunity to create history against one of the most powerful Test nations.
In recent ODI series, Bangladesh proved weaker than the Zimbabweans who also crushed the New Zealanders in their recent Test match. So West Indies victory against the weakest of the ten Test-playing nations cannot be counted for much.
As I pointed out last Sunday, this was the best chance to sneak a surprise on the Indians before their top players get into top form.
It is imperative that all players donning the West Indies outfit, especially the newcomers, must adopt greater discipline and focus when given the opportunities.
The newcomers and those with lesser experience can take a leaf from debutant Ashwin’s example to seize the moment to create a big impact and cement his place in the Indian line-up.
He had replaced the experienced but out-of-favour Harbhajan Singh. With intelligent use of clever variations he stamped his class with the third best innings haul (21.3-5-47-6) by a debutant Indian bowler.
Only leg-spinner Narendra Hirwani; who claimed eight wickets in each innings (18.3-3-61-8 and 15.2-3-75-8) on his first outing against West Indies at Chennai in January 1988; has better returns in an innings and overall in a match.
It was no wonder that he was voted Player-of-the-Match with his match haul of 9 for 128 which is also second best to Hirwani’s world record exploits.