It was West Indies Captain Jason Holder who won the toss as the 1st Test at the prestigious Vivian Richards Stadium commenced in Antigua. Rightly so, Holder put India into bat on a trademark West Indian bouncy wicket where an early breakthrough was on the cards with Kemar Roach & Shannon Gabriel playing with the pace & movement of the track.
As it happened
It was only a matter of time when Mayank Aggarwal teased a beauty outside the off stump kissing the outside edge of his bat straight into the gloves of wicketkeeper Shai Hope. Just a few minutes ago he had played a beautiful cover drive for 4 but just after that got beaten by the movement of Roach. The next wicket to go down was the solid Cheteshwar Pujara who played a loose defensive shot & similar to Aggarwal edged it to the keeper.
In came, the Indian Captain in search of his 19th test ton to equal Ricky Ponting’s record but only after playing a cover drive & straight drive for consecutive 4s fell prey to a Shannon Gabriel awkward bounce jamming him up with the commentators chanting “Welcome to West Indies, Kohli!” India were now struggling on 25-3. What they needed now was a steady partnership to get things in place & not lose any more wickets.
That is just what KL Rahul & Ajinkya Rahane delivered for the team. KL Rahul played some clean cover drives & leg glances before he got out to a dolly by Roston Chase edging it to the keeper outside his leg stump. After this bizarre dismissal, Ajinkya Rahane took charge and after a number of drop chances made 81 off 163 before he got played on by a Shannon Gabriel in-swinger. Vihari, who was also looking good perished on a Roach outside the off edge at a score of 32.
Towards the end of the day, it was Rishabh Pant punishing loose deliveries specifically for 4 and playing some smart test cricket until rain interrupted play causing early stumps at only 68.5 overs. India scored 203/6 with Pant on 20(41) & Jadeja on 3(28) before going on to the tail-enders.
Day 2 Prediction
Rain could play spoilsport again after the 1st-day got interrupted a number of times. Pant & Jadeja can go on and make a 75-100 run partnership stand featuring a 50 from one or both these batsmen. India would score around 330 odd runs before putting the West Indies into bat. The Windies are likely to lose close to 7 wickets on Day 2 scoring 150-175 runs with decent knocks from one of either Darren Bravo or Shai Hope. Roston Chase could be handy too but the Indian bowling line up will be looking to rattle them off as soon as possible with Shami leading the attack.
A lot of stuff happened as predicted in our previous blog including the rain interruption & the West Indies bowling. Stay tuned for more accurate tips & offers from BalleBaazi in order to win bigger and better across our Fantasy Sports platform.
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