Ravichandran Ashwin’s five-wicket haul was the best of a strong day for India. The West Indies were all out for 150 at the end of the first day of the first Test in Dominica on Wednesday.
At the end of the day, India had scored 80 runs without losing a wicket.
The 36-year-old spinner, who had been left out of the World Test Championship final against Australia a month earlier, took 5-60 in 24.3 overs. This made the home captain, Kraigg Brathwaite, regret choosing to bat first when he won the toss.
Ravindra Jadeja (3-26), another spinner, helped Ashwin a lot. Alick Athanaze, a first-time batsman from the Dominican Republic who was 24 years old and batted left-handed, was the only one who put up a good fight. He scored 47 runs before being eighth out, just before the tea break.
Yashasvi Jaiswal, one of two Indian debutants, then joined Rohit Sharma in an unbroken opening stand against a varied bowling attack that didn’t pose much of a threat. It doesn’t look good for the Caribbean team going into day two with Jaiswal on 40, his captain on 30, and a very experienced and confident batting lineup to follow.
“There was a bit of moisture on the pitch early on, but it started to turn a bit more as the day went on, even though it was quite slow,” Ashwin said after his 33rd five-wicket innings haul in Tests.
“International cricket is all about being able to change, trying to be the best, and always trying to get better.”
Ashwin was brought in after only 40 minutes of play, when India’s first two bowlers looked unhappy because the pitch didn’t help them much.
He reacted right away by bowling Tagenarine Chanderpaul and then getting Brathwaite to make a terrible mistake, which set the tone for the home team’s terrible batting performance.
Athanaze’s calmness and shots were impressive, but as wickets fell around him, he fell just short of the 50-run mark. His try to pull off Ashwin gave Shardul Thakur a simple catch at mid-on.
He was part of the only important partnership of the game. He and Jason Holder put up 41 runs for the sixth wicket before Mohammed Siraj got the former captain to pull, which Thakur caught at deep square-leg.
Siraj had already made a great diving catch at mid-off when Jermaine Blackwood tried to hit Jadeja with a lofted drive right before lunch.
Thakur also did well with the ball in the morning. He got rid of Raymon Reifer by having India’s other rookie, Ishan Kishan, take a low catch.
But the wicketkeeper’s glovework against spinners was often sloppy, which is already making people wonder if it was smart to leave out the current gloveman, Srikar Bharat.
In the last over of the day, Jaiswal had the guts to reverse sweep left-arm spinner Jomel Warrican for a boundary. This put an exclamation point on India’s strong day and sent a message about how they plan to play on day two.