A stunning counterattack, led by Harbhajan Singh and bought into by Suresh Raina, threatened to take the game away from West Indies, who had been superb in reducing India to 85 for 6. Ravi Rampaul removed the openers, Devendra Bishoo took out the big three - Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman and MS Dhoni - but once Harbhajan's clean striking began, the bowlers served up a few too many half-volleys and half-trackers. By the time West Indies got their composure back, Harbhajan and Raina had settled into a long partnership.
On a damp pitch whose cracks offered uneven bounce, the first two sessions of the series provided some gripping Test cricket. Rampaul began with an unbroken eight-over spell in the heat and humidity of Kingston, giving West Indies at least one early wicket for a fourth time in his last five innings. Rahul Dravid's looked as solid during his 40 as he had during his two match-winning fifties five years ago at the same venue. Bishoo, playing his third Test, then intervened to remove Laxman, Dravid and Dhoni - who had 22,891 Test runs between them when the Test started - in the space of 20 deliveries. Raina then negotiated a barrage of short deliveries from Fidel Edwards before Harbhajan's hitting put West Indies off their plan. This was his fifth score of 40 or above in his last eight Tests - two of them centuries.
In between there were unremarkable debuts for Abhinav Mukund and Virat Kohli. However, the first wicket to fall was M Vijay, who might as well have been wearing his IPL kit when he slapped a full and wide delivery straight to point. Mukund, his state-mate and prolific run-getter in domestic cricket, came close to edging thrice before he played one on for 11.
Dravid and Laxman, batting together for the first time since the Boxing Day Test in Durban last year, handled the misbehaving pitch during their 34-run stand. The ball bounced towards the shoulder and the handle of the bat, but they managed to keep it down with soft hands. Dravid made full use of overpitched deliveries with off-drives, and Laxman used the back-cut.
Their partnership was starting to look threatening. Bishoo, however, had other ideas. He began with a perfect legbreak, just short of driving length, on off, and produced the outside edge from Laxman 17 minutes before lunch. After the interval Dravid hit Bishoo for two boundaries - one off a long hop and the other off a half-volley - before Bishoo got his own back getting an edge off a full legbreak. Dhoni played a premeditated forward-defensive, and the extra bounce again took the shoulder of the bat. Not only was the bowling good until then, the captaincy too had been positive.
Harbhajan, though, played havoc with West Indies' minds. After watching Raina avoid an over full of hostile bouncers from Edwards, Harbhajan tore into Bishoo. What made it even better, and perhaps rattled West Indies more, was that he did it all without any slogs or swipes. He hit his fourth, fifth and sixth deliveries for fours: over the bowler's head, a late-cut, and over midwicket, the only time he went across the line. In the next over he cut Edwards for another four.
Raina, perhaps relieved at making it to the other end, pulled out two beautiful extra-cover drives off Bishoo's next over. Darren Sammy called back Rampaul, who tried to bowl fast and into Harbhajan's ribs. Harbhajan got inside the line twice and glanced him fine for fours before smacking another through extra cover. A clueless Bishoo served a full toss and a long hop in the next over, both of which Raina hit for fours. With barely a risk taken, the partnership now read 56 in 6.2 overs. Bishoo's figures had gone from 3.2-2-11-3 to 7-2-44-3. Harbhajan was 36 off 22, Raina 25 off 28.
It was sensational stuff, and West Indies were blown away. Rampaul and Sammy brought some sanity back to proceedings, but by then Harbhajan and Raina had their eyes set on big innings. While Harbhajan still kept hitting the boundaries, Raina dropped anchor, and saw Harbhajan reach the half-century first. Lest it be thought that the pitch had become a featherbed, Rampaul produced two nasty ones to beat Raina even with the partnership about 70 runs old. Again the ball kicked from a length, and beat the outside edge.
The runs still flowed easily. Raina push-drove Sammy for two lovely straight fours to reach his half-century too, and pointed towards the coach Duncan Fletcher in celebration. So positive were the two they slogged the hell out of Bishoo in the last over before tea: four, four, one, six, one and one made it 150 runs for the second session, 134 of those in this partnership.
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