Marlon Samuels and Shivnarine Chanderpaul’s perseverance and rain interruptions frustrated India as the West Indies crawled to 98 for 5 on the second day of the second cricket Test here.
Indian paceman Ishant Sharma struck twice in three balls to reduce the West Indies to 57 for five in the curtailed morning session after the hosts resumed at an uncomfortable 30 for three in reply to India’s first innings total of 201 all out.
However, several rain interruptions and some sensible batting by Samuels (21) and Chanderpaul (20) gave India no chance to make further inroads into the hosts’ batting line up.
The two batsmen added 41 runs for the unconquered sixth wicket and batted together for 19.3 overs on a day, when only 25.3 overs of play was possible.
The tenor of the day was set early when a shower delayed its start by 45 minutes. There was another break of half an hour after lunch and the resumption lasted no more than eight-odd overs.
Early Tea
Heavy rains lashed Kensington Oval in the second session which forced the umpires to enforce early tea in the hope of squeezing as much play as possible in the final session.
That opportunity never arrived. Even though it stopped raining after a while, early tea was taken and players even came out in the final session.
It began raining almost immediately forcing players to go back to the pavilion. Thereafter it was poor light which never allowed the game to resume.
