Day 1 report: Hometown hero Shami cuts Windies down to size

It was the 40th over of the innings when things finally changed for India. The umpires had a look at the ball, decided it was out of shape and changed it. The batsmen had no say in the matter but Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni was probably glad it happened. Till that point, Marlon Samuels had looked imperious – he was standing tall and smashing the ball through the offside with disdain. Then, the ball started to reverse and West Indies had no answer to that. In the 43rd over, West Indies were 134-2 with Samuels on 61 off 93 balls and Dwayne Bravo, playing an unusally subdued innings, had 23 off 93 balls. It was slow but it was solid and had helped West Indies rebuild after they lost their openers cheaply. But after just five balls with the ’new’ ball, Mohammad Shami did the damage that Dhoni was hoping for. He got a ball to pitch and cut in sharply. It surprised Samuels with pace too and knocked down the middle stump. (138-3) [caption id=“attachment_1214519” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Mohd Shami was in superb form. BCCI[/caption] Four balls later, Bravo committed hara-kiri. He wandered down the pitch looking for a non-existent single and got run out. Shivnarine Chanderpaul, at the other end, hardly moved. It was almost as bad as the run-out of George Bailey that we saw in the Bangalore ODI of the India-Australia series. (138-4) West Indies were playing with only five specialist batsmen and these wickets knocked the stuffing out of them but soon it became worse. Five balls later, Denesh Ramdin was done in by another reverse swinging delivery from Shami – this time it was the off-stump that was uprooted (143-5). Analysis: Shami’s sparkling debut gives India the cutting edge Stats: Shami Ahmed makes best debut by Indian pacer in 46 years Quote: You’ll also see Shami bowl delivery that reverses away - Coach From Eden Gardens: How Tendulkar milked the crowd at Eden Gardens While all this was happening – Chanderpaul stood at the other end. Before the start of the Test, the left-handed veteran was averaging 65 but what good is that average when no one was prepared to stay with him in the middle. Darren Sammy, West Indies skipper, should have known better than trying to loft R Ashwin out of the ground. A six would have been a quick fix… what West Indies really needed was a partnership – a long one if possible. But that just didn’t happen. Sourav Ganguly in the commentary box just couldn’t believe the shot that Sammy played: “This is Test cricket and that was not a shot for this format,” he exclaimed unable to hide his disappointment. Shane Shillingford tried to stay with Chanderpaul but he is a batsman of limited means – with a top-score of 31* in Test cricket – and he wasn’t going to cut it in foreign conditions. But the crowd’s joy knew no bounds when Sachin Tendulkar – bowling leg-spinners – managed to get his 46th Test wicket by trapping the right-hander leg-before. The obstinate Chanderpaul (36) was clean bowled by a quicker one from Ashwin and soon enough, West Indies – who were 138-2 at one stage – were bowled out for 234. The last 8 wickets had fallen for just 96 runs. The Indian bowling attack was inexperienced – Pragyan Ojha with 23 Tests is the most experienced bowler but India rarely ever looked like it missed the experience of Zaheer Khan or Harbhajan Singh. Shami was superb – he bowled stump-to-stump, got movement, showed he has a good bouncer, managed to reverse the ball and most importantly, his pace didn’t drop through the day. He continued to run in hard and bowl consistently above 135 km/h. Bhuvneshwar’s pace had dropped to 120 km/h by the time he came in for his second spell and that is not going to worry many international batsmen. India are now in the driver’s seat. They have a chance to bat just once in this match and they need to make the opportunity count. But come day two, one can be sure that the focus won’t be on India’s batting – it will once again be Sachin. He already gave the crowd a taste of his bowling talents and now it’s time to turn on the charm with the bat. Given what we’ve seen so far, the West Indies might go out of their way to help him too.