It was an all-too-familiar batting collapse by the West Indies yesterday that served as a lingering reminder of the team’s penchant for squandering good positions and its susceptibility to quality spin bowling.
And without the dropped chances by Mohammad Salman, Alzhar Ali and skipper Misbah-ul-Haq the total might have been even more embarrassing.
The first day of the Digicel Test match against Pakistan at the Guyana National Stadium also highlighted a pitch, which spun, turned and offered uneven bounce, the guile of Saeed Ajmal whose variations, especially his doosra, were menacing, and the batsmen’s inability to piece together any substantial partnership after Lendl Simmons and Darren Bravo for the second wicket.
Spinners Abdur Rehman and Mohammad Hafeez also shared in the 68 of 90 overs with Ajmal to stymie the Windies fight, leaving them at the close on 209-9. Ajmal, who captured 4-63, along with Hafeez (2-22) and Rehman (2-46), ensured that the Caribbean side was unable to free themselves of their self-imposed shackles.
Simmons, currently enjoying a purple patch of form, looked the part once again but he too fell prey to the spin of Ajmal, one shy of his half century after returning from a hit on the knee earlier in his partnership with Darren Bravo (25). Other contributions came from Shivnarine Chanderpaul (27) and Ramnaresh Sarwan (23).
However, none of them were able to convert to more meaningful scores and this essentially painted the bleak picture of the West Indies performance. The last wicket pair of Kemar Roach and debutant Devendra Bishoo was battling on 16 and 10 respectively.
Earlier when skipper Darren Sammy won the toss and batted the batsmen started steadily despite the early loss of Devon Smith for 13. He was bowled playing forward to Hafeez and was undone by the spin when the score was 15.
Simmons and Bravo got together and patched up the early breach with a 56-run partnership. They worked the ball around the ground for the singles, playing the bowling on its merit. In the 22nd over Bravo punished a short Ajmal delivery by cutting him through cover; Simmons joined the party two overs after by driving an over-pitched delivery from Ajmal through cover and followed up the next delivery with a slap through point.
The two continued quite comfortably and looked set to save their team from the mire they would eventually end up in. Simmons pounced on another over-pitched Ajmal delivery that was driven to the extra cover boundary, a shot that would also see him passing his previous highest Test score of 24.
Pacer Wahab Riaz then got some stick from Bravo, who rocked back and cut him past the gully area. However, Riaz would later get his revenge by removing Bravo lbw after it was sent up for referral to the third umpire in the 34th over.
Simmons, in the next over, determined to continue positively, lifted Rehman for six over wide long on before being dropped by Azhar Ali at gully off the bowling of Riaz. The bowler fired back with a delivery that caught Simmons on the knee roll, which eventually saw him limping off the field when the score was 81 in the 36th over.
Sarwan and Chanderpaul pushed the score to 127 in the 55th over before Sarwan, who hit two fours, was caught behind off a thin under edge from Rehman. The cookie crumbled from thereon as wickets fell cheaply through ill-advised strokes and impatience.
From 127-2 West Indies would lose their next seven batsmen for a mere 82 runs and even when Simmons returned the effects of the hit still lingered and hampered his movement tremendously. Captain Darren Sammy was hopeful on Wednesday that the team’s batting would have clicked on the day but none of the batsmen stepped up as Sammy had hoped.
