India look for series win and Tendulkar’s 100th ton at Eden

Kolkata (IANS) India go into the second cricket Test against the West Indies here at the Eden Gardens Monday, hoping their in-form young spinners will wrap up the three-match series and, as the icing on the cake, master batsman Sachin Tendulkar would get his 100th international 100.

Up 1-0 in the three-match series, rallying after conceding a sizeable first-innings lead to put it across the Caribbeans at Delhi’s Feroze Shah Kotla, the Indians would like to carry the momentum against a side that today lacks the character their predecessors had and the awe with which the cricket world looked at them a couple of decades ago.

India have won the last three Test series against the West Indies and they should make it four in a row without much difficulty.

Much will, however, depend on off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin who will be out playing here barely 24 hours after getting married in Chennai Sunday, and his left-arm partner Pragyan Ojha.

The two young men picked up 16 of the 20 West Indies wickets on the slow Kotla turner, Ashwin on debut getting nine and a dozen-Tests-old Ojha seven. The chances of an encore by the two at Eden are high as the track here is also known to assist slow bowlers, particularly on the last two days.

‘As long as I’ve known, spin has been our problem. We need to find a way to score against spin and not let it get to us,’ West Indies skipper Darren Sammy said.

The spin success must have come as a big relief to skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who has gone into the first Test with an inexperienced attack -- no Zaheer Khan, recovering from a hamstring and ankle injury, and Harbhajan Singh, who is struggling to find form in domestic cricket.