Team India's 2011 Season

[Bounce]

West Indies in India, 2011


Second Test Match at Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Hyderabad

Darren Sammy celebrates the wicket of Gambhir

Team India trailed by 411 runs as the Indian openers, Gautam Gambhir and Virender Sehwag came out at the center. Both started their inning the way they usually do. Gambhir looked strong in his defense and looked to stay at pitch as long as he could, while Sehwag rocketed with a couple of sixes and a few 4s. Darren Sammy looked superb with the new ball. He managed to sent back Sehwag for a score of just 36 as India lost the first wicket.

Next to come in was the wall, Rahul Dravid. He did not look in good touch during the first test and the same was the story here as departed just for 8 runs, again being caught by the wicket-keeper Denesh Ramdin of Sammy.

After a good start, suddenly the Indians were on the back-foot. Though Dravid spent a good amount of time at the crease, but the runs weren't flowing the way the should have. Sachin Tendulkar joined the settled Gambhir. But this time, it was Gambhir who fell to Sammy's class. Sammy trapped him at the middle stump as the umpire raised his finger. Gambhir departed on 34, leaving team India in big trouble. Darren Sammy was pumped up!

Suresh Raina joined Tendulkar, with the aim of not only helping out India to put a respectable total, but also to cement his place in the Indian XI. Understanding the situation, both the batsmen played sensibly, defending most of the deliveries and attack the bad ones. The pair managed get the Indians back on track with healthy partnership amongst them. Sachin reached his fifty, followed by Raina. Sadly, Sachin was given caught behind off a delivery which was miles away from his willow! The master fell to bad decisions again and had to walk back with a score of 61 next to his name. Jerome Taylor got his first wicket of the match.

VVS Laxman joined Raina and one would have expected the pair to put on a good show. Unfortunately, both these batsmen had to walk back within a span of 2 overs, as Raina got stumped by Ramdin off Nikita Miller and Laxman gave a simple catch to Ryan Hinds off Darren Sammy.

The two batsmen out at the crease were the Indian skipper, MS Dhoni and the turbanator, Harbhajan Singh. Dhoni looked good as usual, starting off slow and building up a big inning out of it. Harbhajan supported Dhoni very well, as the pair managed to put a partnership of more than 50 runs. Later Harbhajan had to depart, adjudged LBW off the part-timer, Omar Phillips.

Dhoni continued his good strokes, accompanied by Praveen Kumar on the other end. The skipper soon reached his 50 and once again played a captain's knock. The part-timer Phillips once again did the job for the Windies as he dismissed Dhoni on 78.

The next two batsmen from the tail, Pragyan Ojha and Zaheer Khan couldn't do much with the bat. The Indians managed to score 396 for the loss of 10 wickets.

For West Indies, every bowler picked up at least one wicket, with the star being Darren Sammy, who ran through the Indian batting line-up and destroyed the top order.

MS Dhoni helped India to reach a respectable score



West Indies lead by 65 runs

Period of the match: Day 3 - Session 2