Pakistan will feel relieved and with a smile in their faces with an anti-climatic but well-deserved win in the light of the spot-fixing scandal last week. Misbah-ul-Haq confirmed his new status as captain with this win and has been the crutches of Pakistan cricket.
Sri Lanka before the end of last day's play could've felt declaring earlier but the rain didn't help their cause of drawing the series and with Sri Lanka still looking for a 3rd specialist spin bowler for sub-continent, this killer instinct was gone when Muttiah Muralithran had left. Declaring at 181-6 with Pakistan's target being 255 in 61 overs, the bowlers got to work.
The openers started aggressively with the 5 overs going for just 20 runs before a sharp and brilliant direct hit from Thiramanne dismissed Hafeez short from his crease. But the next batsmen and Azhar Ali decided to play safe and at one point hit 6 runs in 11 overs, playing out for a draw. But Suraj Randiv and Rangana Herath battered as hard as they could, even with the close-up fielding. Yielding only 3 wickets at 87-4 both captains decided for a draw with Sri Lanka giving up in the fight for the win.
The 24 overs lost by the untimely rain would've helped Sri Lanka in their cause to draw the series but luck chose Pakistan to see the light in the end of the tunnel but the battle resumes in coloured tops with the first ODI starting on Friday.
West Indies 304 (Chanderpaul 118, Brathwaite 63, Ojha 6-72, Ashwin 3-81) and 21 for 2 (K Edwards 15*, F Edwards 0*) lead India 209 (Sehwag 55, Dravid 54, Sammy 3-35) by 116 runs
Test Cricket has seen another spectacle with a 17 wicket show today between India and West Indies with the latter smiling brightly although both sides have been contmeplating poor batting and soft dismissals-specially Virender Sehwag.
West Indies might have brought Chanderpaul to his century, they lost 5 wickets in 52 runs in a moving but patient-lacking session. All out for 304, India didn't show any patience at all with the opening fiery pair of Gautam Gambhir and Virender Sehwag putting 89 runs in 12.3 overs in their opeining partnership until they got carried away when Gambhir fallen short to his crease leaving him dismissed along with his partner soon after, playing a quite ambitious shot to long-on.
The little Master's 100th Century still didn't come in now a 16th attempt after being dismissed by the in form Fidel Edwards who was can catch someone out very quickly.
The rest of India's batsmen didn't solve their problem of getting back into rhythm after a collapse in wickets and soon, it suffered with Umesh Yadav being the last to go leaving India at just 209 all out in 52.5 overs. No patience shown being bowled out at just over 50 overs.
Pragyan Ojha and Ravichandran Ashwin shown their capability and worth in the Test squad by dismissing Braithwaite and Powell in the last session leaving the 2 Edwards surviving the night with 115 runs and more to push out of reach from the Indians leaving them their first victory in India against India for more than 20 years.
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