ST. KITTS: Indian spin troika of Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin and Amit Mishra kept their stranglehold on the inexperienced West Indies Board President’s XI to bowl them out for a paltry 180 on the first day of the final warm-up game, here today.
At stumps, India were 93 for 3 in reply in 25.3 overs with KL Rahul (30 batting) looking solid while Cheteshwar Pujara (28) was dismissed of the last ball of the day.
Regular openers Murali Vijay (23) and Shikhar Dhawan (9) were dismissed quickly by the West Indies new ball bowlers.
But the day belonged to the Indian spinners with Jadeja recording miserly figures of 3/16 in 13 overs as he stifled the batsmen for runs with accurate bowling.
Ashwin (3/62 in 19.5 overs) although rusty and Mishra (2/45 in 10 overs), who was a tad bit expensive, nevertheless complemented Jadeja by picking up crucial wickets with the home team were all out in 62.5 overs after opting to bat.
When India started bowling, Mohammed Shami was a bit wayward with the new ball and did not bowl after his first five-over spell in the morning. Rookie Shardul Thakur (1/24), meanwhile, was impressive with his line and length and often beat the batsmen. He got the opening breakthrough, with skipper Leon Johnson (3) caught by a diving Stuart Binny at mid-off.
Binny (1-8) was the first-change bowler and added to the wickets’ column, removing Shai Hope (11). He too bowled the initial spell of five overs only, as most of the bull-work during the day was trusted to the three spinners who didn’t disappoint.
Ashwin seemed to have recovered completely from his injury-scare before departing from here, as he worked out a nice length after initial rustiness
thereafter during his 19.5 overs. Although the pitch was slow, he used the bounce beautifully. (PTI)