“He is a class batsman and has been that way for the best part of twenty years,” the former paceman said. “He has been in great form this year. With his appetite, I am sure he will score runs in Australia as well. It was obviously good to take his wicket; that lifted everyone up. It’s good that we don’t have to see Dravid walk out tomorrow and take guard again.”
India have the advantage with a fair amount of batting still to come, but Gibson countered, “Of course we can come back into the game. As you saw in Delhi last week, both teams are capable of collapsing. We shall rehydrate well and come back. Tomorrow is a new day, we will try to restrict them as much as we can and bat positively when we get the opportunity.”
Darren Sammy had said on Sunday that offie Shane Shillingford would replace Ravi Rampaul in the playing eleven, but instead, it was quick bowler Kemar Roach who earned a comeback. “It was a tough decision,” Gibson conceded. “You look at the pitch and feel maybe you can play two spinners. But you look at historical evidence… Indians grew up playing spin. The extra pace of Roach could help and it worked out quite well for us. He filled the space left by Rampaul.”
It was a hard day’s work for the Caribbean bowlers. “It’s always tough to play on this track,” Gibson pointed out. “Our guys toiled hard. We knew it was always going to be difficult to bowl to Sehwag early on, the way he plays. Credit to all the guys for being at it the whole day and getting five wickets.”
The West Indies seemed to have perfected the art of getting wickets off innocuous deliveries, with the top four Indian batsmen gifting their wickets away. Yeah, loose balls are the best balls sometimes!” Gibson laughed. “So let’s try working on bowling some bad balls!”
