West Indies v India - Tour Match
Barbados XI v Indians
Kensington Oval, Bridgetown
3 Day Game
Umpires: HBD Jordan & LH Barker
Toss: Barbados XI
Barbados XI: G Challenor, SL Campbell, SM Nurse, CA Best, JED Sealy, *JDC Goddard, DAJ Holford, +DA Murray, VA Holder, ST Clarke, WW Daniel.
Indians: SM Gavaskar, M Prabhakar, VL Manjrekar, VS Hazare, DB Vengsarkar, *MAK Pataudi, Kapil Dev, +SMH Kirmani, J Srinath, EAS Prasanna, BS Chandrasekhar.
India needed to regroup following their third Test defeat in Guyana, and on a placid strip at the Kensington Oval they played out a tame draw with John Goddard's Barbados XI ahead of the Test here later in the week.
The hosts batted with enterprise on the first day, with Carlisle Best slamming fifty off just 43 balls after the early loss of both openers, and after Best eventually went for 81 out of a stand of 137 with Seymour Nurse, a further 191 runs were piled on for the fourth wicket as Derek Sealy played second fiddle to the increasingly dominant Nurse. India's bowlers toiled in the unhelpful conditions as Nurse made his way to a confident century, but the pace of his scoring slowed somewhat as he approached 200, forcing Goddard to extend the innings almost until lunch on the second day in order for Nurse to reach his milestone.
turned out to be a relatively mundane draw
Barbados had reached 412-4 when the declaration came, and in reply the Indians batted on past tea on the third and final day, paying scant regard to the match situation as they simply opted for what amounted to a glorified net session. Clarke, Daniel and Holder struggled to extract any life from what was by now a truly dead wicket, and it was the medium pace of Goddard and Sealy that posed the most telling questions as all bar Hazare of the Indians' top order got some runs under their belts.
Manjrekar's five and a half hour 90 was the most significant contribution for the tourists, whilst Pataudi's quickfire 69 provided the most entertainment as the Indians meandered their way to a final total of 355 in the game's final hour, the match ending as a draw with Barbados reaching 23-1 in their second innings. India would probably be very happy to play the Test on a similar pitch to the one used here, but with the series poised at 1-1 with two to play one can only speculate as to the instructions issued to the ground staff ahead of what promises to be a pivotal fourth Test match.
Score Summary
BAR XI 1st Inns 412-4 dec. (Nurse 200*, Best 81, Sealy 78)
IND 1st Inns 355 (Manjrekar 90, Pataudi 69)
BAR XI 2nd Inns 23-1
Close of Play
Day 2 - Indians 1st innings 129-4 (Manjrekar 33*, Pataudi 0*; 48.3 ov)
Day 3 - Barbados XI 2nd innings 23-1 (12 ov) - end of match
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