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I had decided to stay at the wicket all day: Sehwag

Faisal Shariff

Assessing his innings at the end of day one in the first Test against the West Indies, Virender Sehwag felt he played too many balls to get to his maiden Test century at home.

Lesser mortals would have settled for a score of 147 off 207 balls, spiked with two dozen boundaries and three sixes. Sehwag though, not totally displeased with his knock, said he would have preferred to have returned unbeaten at the end of the day.

"I had decided to stay at the wicket all day. The wicket was slow and, therefore, it took some time to set. I left a lot of balls early in the morning, outside the off-stump," he said, after scoring his third Test hundred.

Sehwag's innings had shades of aggression and a growing maturity in his choice of strokes. He eschewed swishing at deliveries outside the off-stump, forcing the Windies bowlers to alter their line and bowl at the stumps. Once that happened, the boundaries flowed with increasing regularity as India took hold of the proceedings.

Even though his partner Sanjay Bangar, at the other end, batted with a studied intensity and concentrated on holding one end up, quite literally, Sehwag was unperturbed.

"It helps if you know that one end is safe. I can smash from the other end," he said.

Bangar, who scored a painstaking half-century, off 177 balls, said the wicket eased out after the first hour of play and batting was not difficult at all.

"Our contrasting styles benefit the team and that is what counts," he added.

The 201-run opening stand was India's highest for the opening wicket against the West Indies, eclipsing the 192-run stand between Sunil Gavaskar and Chetan Chauhan, also in Bombay, in 1979-80.

Some bad balls were punished while good ones too received similar treatment.

Sehwag felt the West Indies bowlers "bowled okay", "but the fact that they did not get an early wicket demoralised them".

But the loss of the openers within an hour after tea slowed down the scoring rate as two new batsmen, Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar, went about planning their innings. And though India have their most trusted pair at the crease for an exciting second day's play, the Indian think-tank will reckon that 50 runs less were scored in the 90 overs today.

Tendulkar, playing his 101st Test, crossed the 1000-run mark in a calendar year yet again in his career. With the new wicket failing to live up to the promise of G Kasturirangan, chairman of the BCCI Grounds and Wickets Committee, another double-century beckons either of the men at the crease.

The talking point of the first Test was the freshly-laid pitch at the Wankhede stadium. A walk around the ground yesterday revealed the sad state of the outfield towards the pavilion. The ground is, in fact, uneven at certain parts, which slows down or even obstructs the ball from rolling on to the boundary. Nadeem Memon, the curator, had complained about the short notice period given to prepare the ground for the Test.

The Wankhede stadium was slated to host the third Test of the three-Test series but hosted the first as it coincided with Tendulkar's 101st Test appearance. The result is a hard, barren outfield, unfit for international cricket. Late Tuesday evening, attempts were made to conceal the barren, brown spots with green paint, though the other half of the ground is lush green with a soft cushion of grass.

The Indian board's decision to prepare good wickets will see all three Tests being played on re-laid tracks, at the Wankhede in Mumbai, the Chidambaram in Chennai and the Eden Gardens in Kolkata. The special unit of the New Zealand Sports Turf Institute (NZSTI) seems to have failed in its endeavour to explain the science of pitch-making to the Indian curators, at least at the Wankhede.

Memon though believes that the new strip has true bounce, and, with India batting first, will see the Test end inside four days. That claim seems highly unlikely, unless the Indian spinners are able to run through the rich West Indian middle-order.

Mervyn Dillon was without doubt the West Indies's pick. He bowled the right channels and troubled Sehwag and Bangar early on in his first spell of six overs that cost seven runs. He returned to bowl well in the post-tea session and claimed both the openers for 12 runs in his third spell of six overs.

Former wicket-keeping great Syed Kirmani created a flutter about Parthiv Patel's selection over Ajay Ratra, calling it an "insult to the fraternity of wicketkeepers".

Kirmani argued that having given Ratra a break in the West Indies (in the 2nd Test at Port of Spain), the Indian selectors should have been enhancing his confidence and instead allowed the younger Patel to mature without too much pressure.

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