India tour of West Indies 2016: On Day 2, overeager Indian seamers fail to find radar

A routine fact-check of the Warner Park wouldn’t leave the bowlers particularly inspired. In three Test matches here, the average first innings tally has been 465, a mean drastically reduced by the last Test here, where Pakistan could garner just 272. In the inaugural Test, India racked up 581 runs. In the second, South Africa plundered 543. The corresponding second innings scores read 362 and 546.

The opening day of the practice game wasn’t any different, as bowlers — both spinners and seamers — laboured hard on an unresponsive wicket, with India technically losing just three wickets (three of them were retired out). But intermittent showers and the overcast sky must have furnished some respite for the Indian seamers. And in the first half an hour, there was some assistance on offer for the seamers, who though squandered it away with errant lines.

The conditions, it seemed, were ideal for Bhuvneshwar Kumar to blossom. He began on a promising note, pitching ball fuller and teasing the batsmen to drive. He mostly swung the ball into the right-hander, and in between slipped in the outswinger. Thus, he set up WICB Board President XI skipper Leon Johnson. The latter had comfortably defended him thus far, but Kumar bowled a couple of inswingers before making one slightly shape away from him, brushing his outside edge to the second slip. At the other end, Mohammed Shami, returning to international after a lengthy lay-off, was working up good pace and probing the batsmen outside the off-stump. Both Shai Hope and Rajendra Chandrika were less certain of the way the ball was moving, and another wicket seemed nigh.