Back to back wins at Sabina Park augurs well for Indian Cricket

India won – with a day to spare – good news for Cricket fans.   Over the years the record of Indians overseas has been improving – thanks to astuteness of Ganguly and now the icy Dhoni.  Now it is a win with a day to spare at Kingston, Jamaica, the dreaded pitch where Indians once witnessed bloodbath !   On a ground where West Indies believed in dishing out only raw pace served hot with bouncers and beamers, a debutant who bowls military medium but seams the ball has succeeded.  

Do you know that Brendan Nash who has been struggling to make runs is the Vice Captain but as Shriram Veera wrote -  Chris Gayle is in the stands, he is at Courtney Walsh's restaurant, he is on the radio, he is at the hair saloon, he is in the newspapers, he is in the media releases, he is on Twitter, but he is not where he should be - on the cricket pitch.

There was some ray of hope for Windies with 195 needed with 7 wickets in hands – Chandrapal 24* and Darren Bravo 30* were at the crease – Indian attack is relatively inexperienced save Harbhajan. 

The wall had demonstrated to the World how to bat – on a dual paced wicket when everyone else struggled even to play out some overs, Dravid was elegant revealing his class…  he went on to make a classy 112 – the  ninth-wicket partnership between Dravid and a fighting Amit Mishra  was worth 56 added a few more in the stand with Ishant Sharma;  and the victory margin was 62. 

 Praveen photo courtesy : cricinfo.com

Once the debutant Praveen removed the overnight batsmen Bravo & Chanderpal, wickets fell in a heap and soon WI were 188/8 – needing 138 more runs.  The big hits of Darren Sammy & Ravi Rampaul only delayed the inevitable – in between DEvendra Bishoo too made some runs.  It is a well known fact that West Indies are not what they used to be and the slump has been too steep – still a win in an away Test and that too at Jamaica makes one feels happy. 

In the midst of silver lining do remember that Indians are without Gambhir, Sehwag, Tendulkar, Yuvraj – perhaps the time for youngsters to grow in the space offered – in the first essay it was Raina and Harbhajan who made runs and in the second it was the eer reliant wall – who is most likely to succeed when others can only struggle..  may be we will see another good innings from Laxman and perhaps the time for grooming  Cheteshwar Pujara ----

Regards – S. Sampathkumar.