West Indies skittled out for 129

Ranjan ANANDAPPA reporting from South Africa

Although India was playing the West Indies at Johannesburg the focus was at Centurion where Pakistan played against the Australians.

The Indian journalists who were covering the lop sided proceedings at Johannesburg were eagerly anticipating the result at Centurion while the Indians were at full throttle hammering an hapless West Indian outfit sans many of their recognised players. Dhoni won the toss and invited the West Indians to bat. He preferred to chase rather than bat first in anticipation of maintaining a faster run rate if Australia loses to Pakistan. However, the seriousness of the game was in bit of a doubt as Dhoni himself took off his keeping gloves off and bowled in the 17th over and got the wicket of Dowling for 14.

None of the West Indian batsmen could produce an Innings with substance. There were no substantial partnerships to build up a challenging total as it was a procession of batsmen appearing and disappearing into the pavilion at regular intervals as the Indian bowlers Ashish Nehra (3 for 31) and Praveen Kumar (3 for 24) kept on pegging to bemuse the West Indians.