VIDEO | Shannon Gabriel bowls perfect inducker to take first wicket post restart

VIDEO | Shannon Gabriel bowls perfect inducker to take first wicket post restart

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By SportsCafe Desk, SportsCafe Editor

17

Cricket is back, rain is back and England is one down for nought in the first session. Well, life seemed to be back to normal as Shannon Gabriel disturbed Dominic Sibley’s timber with a classic inswinger that took the top of off-stump in classic manner and restarted the new normal in Test cricket.

After a minute's silence of tributes to Health workers fighting a brave battle against Covid-19 virus and the passing away of the great Sir Everton Weekes, both the teams took the knee for 30 seconds in what was a really poignant start to the Test series between England and West Indies. We might be far away from what is possibly the old normal, with a vaccine still being a long shot, but the Windies players, however, weren’t buying that at all. 

In just the 10th delivery of cricket’s restart, Gabriel landed a delivery outside off-stump to Dominic Sibley but the Englishman, clouded by the previous delivery which moved away from him after pitching, shouldered arms to that delivery. However, the scrambled seam delivery actually veered into the batman, leaving him completely puzzled. The red Dukes hit the top of off-stumps and England lost the first wicket for nought.

However, that was not the end of the story. Windies players, ecstatic about the wicket, ran into each other and although they avoided hugs, they high-fived each other, almost forgetting the social distancing and zero-touch policy by the International Cricket Council. Incidentally, it was Jason Holder, who had forgotten and extended his hand to Ben Stokes for a handshake after the toss, who was involved in the high-five too. 

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