Zee Media Bureau/Chaitan Papnai
New Delhi: It was a dream debut for Mohammad Shami, who not only made his Test debut at the iconic Eden Gardens, but also scalped four wickets in the first innings to help India bundle out the West Indies side on 234.
Ironically, before the start of the match, Shami got his Test cap from pacer Ishant Sharma, who himself could not make it to the playing XI.
The first match of the two-Test series between India and West Indies saw three players making their debuts – Rohit Sharma, Shami for India and lanky left-arm pacer Sheldon Cottrell for the visiting team.
Shami`s maiden Test match wicket was of Kieran Powell. Powell tried to pull Shami’s first bouncer of the day but didn’t manage to connect it from the middle and the ball went high in the air, Bhuvneshwar Kumar took a good running catch at mid-off.
But even after losing two wickets within 50 runs, Darren Bravo and Marlon Samuels added 91 runs for the third wicket and were heading towards a big partnership. Dhoni reintroduced Shami and he didn’t disappoint his skipper as he knocked out the middle stump of Samuels to break the dangerous partnership.
In the very next over, Bravo also got run-out, when Shami returned the ball from short-fine leg within a flash to give the West Indies team another big blow.
Shami’s show didn’t stop there as in his next over, he swung the ball into Denesh Ramdin which crashed into the right-hander’s stumps.
And later to finish off the West Indian innings, he ripped apart the stumps of fast bowler Sheldon Cottrell to finish off with the impressive figures of seventy one for four in seventeen overs.
On day one, Shami was undoubtedly the pick among the bowlers.
