Kolkata: Pacer Mohammed Shami announced his arrival on the Test arena by scalping four wickets in a dream spell against the West Indies as a dominant India started Sachin Tendulkar’s farewell series by taking early control of the first Test here on Wednesday.
Shami returned impressive figures of 4/71 in 18 overs as India bowled out the visitors for a paltry 234 after they opted to bat at the Eden Gardens on the opening day.
At stumps, India were comfortable placed at 37 for no loss with the two openers, Shikhar Dhawan (21) and Murali Vijay (16), at the crease. At the end of first day’s play, India trailed the West Indies by 197 runs with all their wickets intact.
West Indies skipper Darren Sammy’s decision to bat may have prevented the crowd from watching Tendulkar bat on the first day itself, but the 40-year-old retiring legend did his bit with the bowl picking up a wicket in his first over itself, taking his Test wicket tally to 46.
While Tendulkar was undoubtedly the cynosure of all eyes, Shami grabbed the opportunity with bot hands as he rocked the West Indies middle-order with a hostile spell that included quite a few reverse-swinging deliveries.
The 23-year-old Shami’s wickets included Kieran Powell, top-scorer Marlon Samuels, Denesh Ramdin and Sheldon Cottrell.
Earlier, West Windies were placed were placed comfortably at 107 for two at lunch, but Shami wreaked havoc in the second session, extracting excellent reverse swings from the Eden pitch to trigger a collapse.
The touring side lost eight wickets for 96 runs to be skittled out in 78 overs.
Samuels scored 65 off 98 balls with the help of 11 fours and two sixes.
About 40,000 turned up on the first day, expecting Tendulkar to bat. While that did not happen, with the ball he turned the clock back as he trapped Shane Shillingford in front of the wicket with a straighter one after bowling three turning deliveries.
Left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha (1/62) too impressed with his tidy bowling but he was unlucky twice with skipper MS Dhoni dropping Samuels and Shillingford on two occasions. Ravichandran Ashwin claimed 2/52.
“The first ball was softer and I wasn’t able to get a lot of swing with it. But after the ball was changed, it started swinging and reversing. It was a great feeling to bowl with the changed ball as well watch others bowl,” Shami told mediapersons after the end of the day’s play.
He has enjoyed a decent success in ODIs but the 23-year-old Bengal-based speedster said that there wasn’t much adjustments that he had to make while switching from the 50-over format to the days version.
“Only the (jersey) colour changes (in Test format). There’s no alteration in basic line and length bowling. There wasn’t any plan as such. My strength lies in line, length and swing. I don’t change my technique as per opponents.” (PTI)
