Rain disrupts play

Basseterre, St Kitts, June 22 (UNI) Rain stopped play after eight overs in the third Test being played here.

Electing to bat first, West Indies were 17 for no loss with Gayle batting on 11 and Ganga not out on 3. Earlier, overnight rain delayed the start of play as wet outfield resulted in loss of first session's play.

The day forecast is for more scattered rains in the afternoon.

West Indies skipper Brian Lara won the toss and elected to bat first. India opted with a bowling combination of two seamers and two spinners bringing in S Sreesanth and Harbhajan Singh for VRV Singh and Irfan Pathan. Munaf Patel and Sreesanth opened the attack for India. Munaf bowled a tight off-stump line and also derived movement off the pitch. Sreesanth was, however, off target from the very beginning and struggled to bowl on one side of the stumps.

After initial caution, Chris Gayle took Sreesanth to task hitting him for a straight four and a huge six over long on. Gayle was extremely severe on Sreesanth in the first Test, also when he hit the seamer from Kerala all around the park. With only two seamers in the eleven, skipper Rahul Dravid would need to fall back to the spin options of Kumble and Harbhajan.

West Indies 1st innings R B 4s 6s CH Gayle not out 11 24 1 1 D Ganga not out 3 26 0 0 Extras (lb 1, nb 2) 3 Total (0 wickets; 8 overs) 17 To bat RR Sarwan, BC Lara, S Chanderpaul, DJ Bravo, MN Samuels, D Ramdin, PT Collins, JE Taylor, CD Collymore Bowling O M R W Econ MM Patel 4 1 6 0 1.50 (2nb) S Sreesanth 4 3 10 0 2.50 UNI XC KD KN2332