Bridgetown: India A got off to s a strong start against West Indies A on the first day of the four-day unofficial Test at the Kensington Oval. India won the toss and elected to ball first and the bowlers stuck to their job and restricted West Indies A to a score of 252 runs in the first innings.
West Indies openers played cautiously in the opening hours of the match and hardy played an aggressive shot. Kraigg Brathwaite who played in the series against Australia was ultra cautious and didn’t hit a single boundary in the 47 balls that he faced. Together, he and Lendl Simmons negotiated the first hour but didn’t do much damage to the scoreboard.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar got India their first wicket and took the wicket of Brathwaite, in the matter of just two runs West Indies A lost another wicket and Shami Ahmed took his first wicket of the day.
The hosts continued to lose wickets and got in a terrible position of 126 runs losing seven wickets in process. For India A, Shami Ahmed, Dinda, Rohit Sharma and Rahul Sharma picked the wickets.
The hosts were in a terrible position and they needed a partnership to take them past the score of 200 and the partnership between Devon Thomas (57) and Veerasammy Permaul (66) did exactly that. Both, players played freely and punished the Indian bowlers for every lose delivery that they bowled. Together they put on 92 runs.
Rahul Sharma broke the partnership by taking Thomas’ wicket. West Indies A tail enders did show some resilience and took the score past 250 before getting all out. For India, Rahul Sharma and Shami Ahmed took three wickets each.
Brief Score:
West Indies A: 252/10 (Permaul 66, Thomas 57, Ahmed 3-43, Rahul Sharma 3-73)
