Day 2: India establishes firm control through VVS & MSD

Thanks to a 224 run partnership between MSD & VVS, Indians are comfortably placed in this match and hence the series. The Laxman-Dhoni association was similar to their 259-run association at the same venue last year, which set up the declaration and gave India enough time to force an innings win against South Africa.

 
Captain cool was reprieved twice during his 175 ball knock. Yes, Roach was the unlucky bowler as he had no-balled on both the occasions.
MSD's innings comprised of 10 fours and 5 sixes, the majestic of them being a six of Roach, over long on, before succumbing to the same bowler the very next ball.Sammy's defensive captaincy meant that the singles remained available throughout, and Laxman kept picking them, hitting only two fours in his advance from 100 to 150, his sixth such conversion out of 17 hundreds. As he approached his hundred, Dhoni too took the Laxman approach as the field sets didn't ask him to take risks. He hit only one four in moving from 68 to 100, but hardly dropped the rate.


In the morning session Laxman finished his first century in 15 months, a deceptive statistic because he has won India Tests in between. Laxman batted on unaffected, reaching 1217 runs in Kolkata, at an average of 110.63. Resuming on an overnight 73, he didn't have to reach out for runs. Fidel Edwards started the day with a 7-2 field for him. Laxman waited and waited until he bowled one straight, and flicked it for four through midwicket.

Dhoni declared when Edwards hurled bouncers at Ashwin as there was a problem in sighting the delivery. Dhoni opened with spin again as it  seemed to be dictated by the state of light. However, he pushed his luck by getting Yadav to bowl the second over. Yadav's second ball was a peach: it landed on the seam and kicked at Adrian Barath, taking the edge to second slip.

Kraigg Brathwaite and Kirk Edwards scored seven runs in the first six overs. That allowed the fielders to crowd the bat. A bat-pad opportunity duly arrived, off the bowling of Ashwin, but substitute Viart Kohli couldn't hold on to it. Kohli was relieved three overs later when the same man Brathwaite was given out bat-pad off Ashwin. This time, though, he didn't seen to have edged it. Five balls later, light deteriorated enough to send the players back.

The ball started to turn and the effective use of the spin, especially, by Ashwin, would mean that W.Indies will have a horrendous  time battling out to save this test match.