India vs West Indies 3rd test Day 1 Highlights

Windsor Park in Roseau, Dominica became the 106th Venue to host a test match. It is a beautiful ground. Dominica though looks breathtaking , just do google image search for dominica and see for yourself. Now coming to the match, West Indies decided to field 2 debutants for this must win match , Ramnaresh Sarwan and Lendl Simmons making way for Kirk Edwards and Kieran Powell. India made 1 change, Munaf Patel back into the side at the expense of Abhimanyu Mithun.

With substantial amount of moisture in the pitch Dhoni won the toss and decided to bowl first on a cloudy morning and was rewarded as West Indies lost 3 early wickets. Praveen kumar picked up the 1st wicket while Ishant sent the others packing. It could have been worse but alas Bravo and Chanderpaul guided West Indies to lunch at 64-3with a 39 run partnership. 

Unlike other West Indian pitches there was not much swing and bounce on offer for the seamers and the wickets picked up by India were mostly due to poor shot selection by the West Indian batsman. Powell poked at a ball outside the off stump and in the process guided it into the safe hands of Laxman. Barath dragged a bouncer which was way down the leg side onto his stumps...wow....! Edwards fell to a dubious decision as without hotspot it is not possible to judge whether the ball hit the bat before it hit the helmet.

In the end , a pretty good session for India. Indians were hoping to build onto that advantage when rain stopped play after just 4 overs were bowled in the post lunch session with West indies managing to score 11 more runs. It has been raining since then :( . 

Let me quote dominica-info.com: "Cool rain showers occur almost every day, especially in Dominica's heavily forested areas, but the dry season usually runs from January to May. The rainiest months are July through October, which are also the months that make up hurricane season."

This is the rainy season and already a session has been lost. The wicket looks a really good batting wicket so getting the remaining 7 wickets asap is essential. Anything less than 250 would do. 

As there seems to be still no mention of play and with clock stretching well past midnight , i am going to call it a day. 

Highlight of the Day - Unusual dismissal of Barath :)

Good luck team india