India 28, losing two quick wickets at lunch

Kingston, Jamaica, Jun 30 (UNI) India was 28 for two after losing the wickets of Virender Sehwag and Wasim Jaffer at lunch on the opening day of the fourth and final test against West Indies at the Sabina Park today.

India, after choosing to bat, made a disastrous start losing two quick wickets in the first four overs but they could have been much worse off if all the catches that the batsmen offered were taken.

Laxman was let off twice in the slips cordon as the West Indies pacers toiled hard on a helpful wicket. Sehwag tried to play a rising delivery on his ribs from Pedro Collins to the on side but only managed to lob an easy catch to Ramnaresh Sarwan at forward short leg. Sehwag went for duck and India was 1 for 1.

VVS Laxman survived the next ball when his edge just fell short of Gayle at first slips. Jerome Taylor bowled an express delivery that nipped back in and shattered the stumps of Jaffer to leave India tottering at 3 for 2.

The first few overs here at the Sabina Park have provided good bounce and assistance to pacers. In an eventful first few over, Sarwan at forward short leg was hit by a powerful on drive from Laxman and had to be taken off the field.

Sarwan was hit badly below knee and didn't came back to field in the first session. Laxman was dropped once more in the 16th over by Lara off Collymore. Laxman survived the chance on his personal score of 5.

Dravid and Laxman completely dropped anchors trying to steer India out of troubled waters. There was some moisture beneath the pitch surface that came up in the morning helping the West Indies pacers. All the four bowlers were able to extract purchase from the surface and made scoring extremely difficult for the Indians. Dravid and Laxman showed extra caution as 12 overs before lunch were bowled maiden. Such was the slowness of Indian scoring that only 8 runs were scored in the first hour.

India won the toss and opted to bat first on the last test of the 4-test series against the West Indies. Both the teams have fielded unchanged teams from the last test here at the Sabina Park. India 1st innings R M B 4s 6s W Jaffer b Taylor 1 14 0 0 V Sehwag c Sarwan b Collins 0 2 0 0 VVS Laxman not out 14 89 1 0 R Dravid not out 13 69 1 0 Extras (w 1) 1 Total (2 wickets; 29 overs) 29 To bat Yuvraj Singh, M Kaif, MS Dhoni, A Kumble, Harbhajan Singh, S Sreesanth, MM Patel Fall of wickets1-1 (Sehwag, 0.3 ov), 2-3 (Jaffer, 3.5 ov) Bowling O M R W Econ PT Collins 7 3 4 1 0.57 JE Taylor 7 3 8 1 1.14 DJ Bravo 8 2 14 0 1.75 (1w) CD Collymore 7 4 3 0 0.42 India: Rahul Dravid, Virender Sehwag, Wasim Jaffer, VVS Laxman, Yuvraj Singh, Mohd. Kaif, MS Dhoni, Anil Kumble, Harbhajan Singh, S Sreesanth and Munaf Patel.

West Indies: Brian Lara (Captain), Chris Gayle, Darren Ganga, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Marlon Samuels, Dwayne Bravo, Denesh Ramdin(wk), Corey Collymore , Jerome Taylor, Pedro Collins.

Umpires Rudi Koertzen and Brian Jerling 3rd umpire : Norman Malcolm UNI