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Home > Sports News > Cricket News > Article > Anshuman Gaekwad West Indies may want to have a track that suits them

Anshuman Gaekwad: West Indies may want to have a track that suits them

Updated on: 30 July,2016 08:52 AM IST  | 
Subodh Mayure | subodh.mayure@mid-day.com

Ex-India batsman and coach Anshuman Gaekwad, who knows what it's like to bat at Sabina Park, reckons it could well be slightly green and bouncy

Anshuman Gaekwad: West Indies may want to have a track that suits them

Sabina park

Charlie Joseph, the groundsman at Sabina Park, Kingston where India and West Indies clash in the second Test from today, was quoted as saying by ESPN Cricinfo that the pitch at this historic venue will have true bounce — at least on the first two days.


Sabina Park

None of the two teams will have major problems with that if it turns out to be true because both sides have the pacemen to exploit a bouncy track. The Indian pace attack of Umesh Yadav, Mohammed Shami and Ishant Sharma gave a good account of themselves in the opening Test at Antigua. Off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin ended up with seven wickets in the second stint, but Yadav and Shami claimed four apiece in the first innings.


Anshuman Gaekwad
Anshuman Gaekwad


India and West Indies have played 11 Tests in Jamaica and the tourists will be looking for a hat-trick of Test wins at Sabina Park.

The most famous (or should we say notorious?) of those was the 1976 one where skipper Bishan Singh Bedi had to declare the first innings closed at 306 for six because he wanted to protect the rest of his players from injury.

Anshuman Gaekwad, who scored 81 on that bouncy Sabina Park wicket, said: "The last time I saw a Jamaica Test wicket was a couple of years ago. It was a very unlike Jamaican wicket that used to be hard and bouncy. This once had low bounce and uneven bounce.

"The curator said the track will be slightly green and bouncy and while you don't know if that will happen, they have got this 19-year-old boy (Alzarri Joseph). I am sure they know that the Indian batsmen are slightly vulnerable as far as the bounce and pace is concerned. That's what we saw in the Antigua Test match. Openers Murali Vijay and Shikhar Dhawan were both uncomfortable, so the West Indies may want to have a track that suits them."

'My ear is not the same'
About the injury he suffered on that tour, after being hit by a Michael Holding delivery below the left ear, Gaekwad said: "Due to that incident, I still have a hearing problem in my left ear. I remember Vishy (Gundappa Viswanath) and Brijesh Patel being in hospital too when I was admitted to for surgery."

Clive Lloyd's West Indians won the Kingston Test and with it, the series. Like West Indies is probably doing so in this series, Lloyd too turned to pace then to save the series. "We had won the third Test at Port of Spain and leveled the series after West Indies won the first in Barbados. There was a question mark over Lloyd's captaincy. He could well have lost it. When we went to Jamaica, we discovered the wicket a tennis ball bounce," recalled Gaekwad, who was praised for his bravado.
On India's next Test tour to the West Indies in 1983, Gaekwad opened the innings with Gavaskar.

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