October 19 Saturday 2002
WI debutant Lawson topples Tendulkar, Dravid

CHENNAI, India: West Indies debutant paceman Jermaine Lawson clean bowled top batting duo Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid as India struggled to a 23-run lead on the second day of the second Test on Friday.

Lawson, 20, ended with figures 2 for 37 off 14 overs as India closed on 190 for 5 in reply to the West Indies' paltry 167. Tendulkar was out for a largely subdued 43, while Dravid's bid for a fifth Test century in a row ended on 11. 

Lawson and his fellow bowlers made some amends for their side's poor batting and three dropped catches by triggering an Indian slide from 134 for 2 at the tea interval.

The morning session was washed out following heavy overnight rain. Leading fast bowler Mervyn Dillon struck twice in two balls by removing opener Sanjay Bangar for a dour 40 and trapping skipper Sourav Ganguly lbw for a first-ball duck to reduce India to 155 for 4 midway through the final session. His figures at the end of the day were an impressive 16-8-17-2.

The 29-year-old Tendulkar began in rousing fashion and profited by a dropped catch on eight, but became subdued after Dillon's twin strikes before being dismissed. He played on to his stumps a wide ball from Lawson which swung in late to leave the Jamaican bowler thrilled after he had struggled for rhythm to match his lively pace.

Lawson, generating sharp pace from an open action, also dashed Dravid's hopes of scoring his fifth consecutive Test hundred to equal West Indies Everton Weekes' feat late in the afternoon. He bowled a superb delivery which nipped back sharply on pitching to bowl Dravid between bat and pad. 

The dismissal ended Dravid's sequence of 115, 148, 217 and 100 made in his last four Tests starting with the recent England tour. It left him tied on four straight hundreds with Australia's Jack Fingleton and South Africa's Alan Melville.

Opener Virender Sehwag dominated the first session with a typically aggressive 61 and raised a 93-run partnership with Bangar after India resumed at 31 for no loss. The stocky batsman, two days away from his 24th birthday, thrived from dropped catches on 40 and 47 in the close cordon as he reached his fourth Test fifty from only 53 balls. Sehwag, who top-scored with 147 to lift India to an innings victory in the first Mumbai Test last week, lofted debutant off-spinner Gareth Breese for his second six in one over to reach his fifty.

He was eventually bowled by left-arm paceman Pedro Collins, who forced Sehwag to play inside the line of a delivery which straightened after pitching to knock back the off-stump. He hit eight fours and two sixes in his 65-ball effort.

Tendulkar joined Bangar to add 46 for the third wicket after Dravid's dismissal before Dillon forced the opener to edge to slips after a sustained off-stump attack. Bangar, who played the sheet-anchor role, faced 171 balls in his nearly three-hour stay.