Siraj, Bumrah and Kuldeep rip through West Indies top-order in 1st Test opener
Mohammed Siraj (3/19) and Jasprit Bumrah (1/24) ran through a frail West Indies top-order before Kuldeep Yadav (1/7) struck at the stroke of lunch to leave the visitors tottering at 90/5 at lunch on day one of the first Test against India here on Thursday.
Siraj returned 7-3-19-3 to wreak havoc in the visiting camp still reeling from their lowest Test score of 27 in the last outing, while Bumrah won his battle against John Campbell (8) in his first spell and Kuldeep cleaned up Shai Hope (26). Roston Chase, who put on 48 runs for the fifth wicket with Hope, was on 22 not out. It wasn’t a green top surface on the match day morning with the pitch bearing a more brown-ish look and the bowlers did not get much off the surface with the new ball.
The first breakthrough came off a rather innocuous fifth delivery of the fourth over from Siraj, short of a length which bounced extra. Tagenarine Chanderpaul (0) moved across to guide it down the leg but Dhruv Jurel put in a dive to collect a clean grab on his right. Bumrah had Campbell caught behind on what looked like a tough call made by the third umpire Paul Reiffel in the seventh over, after Shubman Gill opted for a review.
Bumrah drew Campbell forward on a delivery that straightened and had his bat squeezed between front pad and the ball. The replays showed two spikes, with Campbell’s bat hitting the pads and turning inside simultaneously when the ball hit the edge and deviated off its course. Bumrah had begun with some dangerous swing movement in the first over troubling Campbell, but the left-handed opener cracked two fours in his second over to level terms. The first was driven down the ground while the second was flicked off the pads.
Brandon King played a few good shots in his brief 15-ball 13 which included three fours but a terrible call of shouldering arms to a Siraj delivery, bowled with a scrambled seam again to get the ball in to the batter, sent his middle stump cartwheeling in the 10th over.
Having been struck on the up for a four by Alick Athanaze (12) through covers earlier, Siraj bowled one on a similar length but this time closer to the batter who went again for a drive, only to edge it behind to KL Rahul at the second slip, with West Indies crumbling to 42 for four. Kuldeep outfoxed Hope with one that turned in from outside the off and beat his inside edge to crash into the wickets.
With PTI Inputs.
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