Mid-Day

St John’s, Antigua, Jun 4: India’s poor batting performance apart, the point of interest on the opening day of the first Test at the Antigua Recreation Ground yesterday was the Indian team combination.

Kumble, not Bhajji

India decided to play only one spinner Anil Kumble and left out the struggling Irfan Pathan to go in with an inexperienced pace attack.

Among the three pacers who constitute the India attack in the match, S Sreesanth and Munaf Patel have played two Tests each while VRV Singh is making his debut.

Questioned on the team combination, team manager Ravi Sawant shocked mediamen by saying that the Harbhajan Singh and Irfan Pathan have been rested and not dropped.

Explanation

In a bizarre explanation, Sawant said: “We have 16 players with us, and only 11 can play. Harbhajan and Pathan have been with the one-day team so they have been rested.”

S Sreesanth, who showed some spunk batting at No 9 to score a valuable unbeaten 24, said: “If we can (he and last man Munaf Patel) could contribute another 20-30 runs, we probably will have a good score.”

The India pacer, who put on 47 runs with Anil Kumble for the eighth wicket, said there was bounce in the wicket and if they bowled in the right areas, the West Indies batsmen would not find it easy to get the runs.

Kumble’s pitch

He predicted that Kumble will relish the bounce and have a big role to play in the match.

The Kerala speedster said it was his dream to open the bowling for India and was looking forward to the opportunity in the match. “We are all capable of winning matches and it is nice that the team management has shown the faith in us,” said Sreesanth.

‘Bat just once’

West Indies skipper Brian Lara said he was happy with the overall performance of his bowlers, but batting on the wicket won’t be easy for his batsmen as well.

“Even after spending so much time at the crease Rahul Dravid didn’t look set at any point of time. It is that kind of a pitch. So we will have to gain the psychological advantage by getting ahead of them. Ideally, we would like to bat only once,” said Lara.