Mohammed Siraj and Jasprit Bumrah came together to decimate West Indies for a paltry 162 before the in-form KL Rahul struck a fluent half century as India dominated the opening day of the first Test on Thursday.
At stumps, the hosts were 121/2. Siraj (4/40) and Bumrah (3/32) were the architects of India's dominating show on a day when rain halted play briefly. Rahul, who struck the first fifty of the series, was batting on 53 off 114 balls with six fours, accompanied by India captain Shubman Gill on 18 (42 balls, 1x4s).
India lost Yashasvi Jaiswal (36) after his 68-run opening stand with Rahul, and B Sai Sudharsan (7) fell soon after, but the hosts largely cruised along on the opening day of the first Test. For someone who has almost every shot in his arsenal, Jaiswal exercised patience, hitting his first boundary after facing 37 deliveries. But once he broke free, he dealt only in boundaries on both sides of the wicket and from a sedate start of 4 off 36 balls, he raced to 36 off 54 balls hitting seven fours.
However, Jaiswal paid the price for his carelessness when he cut one close to his body, which resulted in an outside edge going to Shai Hope behind the wickets off Jayden Seales. If Jaiswal failed to convert his start, No.3 Sudharsan (7) could not even spend enough time to give himself a chance.
Unscathed from a mix-up between the wickets with Rahul after he failed to respond to a second run while being inattentive to his partner in the 24th over, Sudharsan fell to West Indies skipper Roston Chase in the next. Sudharsan went for a pull shot against the off-spinner while misjudging the length of the ball, which pitched in line of the stumps and hit him on the back leg.
Rahul, on the other hand, came out on top after some initial struggles with the new ball. With plenty of time in hand and India not in a hurry to impose the inevitable, he paced his innings to hold one end strongly.
Earlier, it was one-way traffic all the way through from the Indian bowlers who were once again led by Siraj as they bowled out the West Indies for 162 after the visitors opted to bat. Siraj couldn't complete a much-deserved five-for, but troubled the Caribbean batsmen consistently.
Siraj produced the ball of the innings after lunch when he angled one into Chase (24), who was squared up and an outside edge was collected by wicketkeeper Dhruv Jurel. Siraj took three wickets upfront in a lethal seven-over spell in the first session and added one more post lunch, but came close twice to completing his fifer.
Pace spearhead Bumrah also found his rhythm with the red ball, nailing a couple of yorkers to return 14-3-42-3. Kuldeep Yadav (2/25) was also impressive. Washington Sundar, the last of India bowlers to have been introduced into the attack, returned figures of 1/9.
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