Leg-spinner Imran Khan blew away the Windwards Volcanoes with seven wickets in the T&T Red Force opening match of the West Indies Four-day Championship at the Brian Lara Cricket Academy yesterday.
Khan elevated to the captaincy in the absence of regular captain Denesh Ramdin, celebrated his call-up with an excellent display of leg-breaks and googlies, as the Windwards batting was bowled out for 206 after 68.1 overs batting first.
In response, T&T Red Force reached 79 for one at the close of play.
The inform Jeremy Solozano was leading the way for the Red Force with an unbeaten 46 and with him was Amir Jangoo on 19 not out. The locals lost opener Kyle Hope for 11 with the score at 24. He fell leg before wicket (LBW) to the former West Indies off-spinner Shane Shillingford.
Solozano looked very fluent in his contribution and faced just 67 balls for his runs. He struck six sweetly timed boundaries that brought applause from the small crowd on hand.
The visitors were large and in charge when the afternoon session started as they were 142/2 with Kirk Edwards and Kaveem Hodge. Khan then turned the game upside down when he worked his way through the batting line up with clinical precision.
The man nicknamed ‘Sharky’ the Alescon Comets took the bull by the horns and led his team admirably. After the early loss of Devon Smith for 15 to off-spinner Bryan Charles, Edwards and Tariq Gabriel stabilised the innings in taking the score to 66. At that point, Gabriel fell to all-arounder Tion Webster for 30. Edwards, the Barbadian was then joined by Hodge and they carried the score to 142 and from then on, the visitors were facing down the barrel of a gun.
Khan took the red cherry and proceeded to shoot down batsman by batsman as Windwards struggled to negotiate the slow bowling on a pitch that was giving the spinners plenty of assistance.
Edwards finally fell leg before to Khan for 55 made off 98 balls with two sixes and four fours. Hodge who battled well for a long period fell for 37 after 71 balls which included six fours. There were also two innings of note from the lower order batsmen, Shillingford got to 25 and Alec Athanaze made 20. However, the day belonged to Khan who twirled his magic to good effect.
Play on the second day today begins at 10am.
SCOREBOARD
Windwards innings
D Smith lbw Charles*15
T Gabriel c Hope b Webster*30
K Edwards lbw Imran*55
K Hodge c Jangoo b Imran*37
R Cato c Charles b Imran*2
A Athanaze c Smith b Imran*20
D Smith c Webster b Imran*2
S Shillingford c Smith b Webster*25
D Johnson b Imran*3
S Lewis c Da Silva b Imran*6
R Jordan not out*5
Extras*6
Total all out*206
Fall of wkts: 25, 66, 142, 144,
149, 151, 183, 195, 195, 206.
Bowling: D St. Clair 6-3-15-0,
O Smith 6-1-20-0,
Bryan Charles 22-6-75-1,
T Webster 12-3-44-2,
Imran Khan 22.1-10-47-7.
T&T Red Force innings
K Hope lbw S Shillingford*11
J Solozano not out*46
A Jangoo not out*19
Extras*3
Total for 1 wkt*79
Fall of wkts: 24.
Bowling: S Lewis 5-1-20-0,
D Johnson 4-1-11-0,
S Shillingford 9-0-23-1,
R Jordan 6-0-22-0,
K Hodge 1-0-1-0.