India enjoy 89-run lead over West Indies at lunch on Day 3
North Sound, Aug 24: India maintain their stranglehold over the West Indies with a healthy 75-run first innings lead, which swelled to 89 by lunch time on the third day of the opening cricket Test here on Saturday.
India bowled out West Indies for 222 in 74.2 overs in their first innings in reply to 297 with Ishant Sharma returning with best figures of 5 for 43.
Besides Ishant, Mohammed Shami (2/48) and left-arm spinner Ravindra Jadeja (2/64) scalped two wickets a piece.
For West Indies, Roston Chase top-scored with 48, while skipper Jason Holder played a fighting 39-run knock as the hosts failed to build up partnerships.
At the opening break of the third day, India were 14 for no loss in their second innings with Mayank Agarwal batting on 8 and K L Rahul on 6.
Earlier, resuming at the overnight score of 189 for eight, Holder and Miguel Cummins stuck together for 103 balls, forging a crucial 41-run partnership for the ninth wicket to take West Indies close to the Indian total.
Holder kept a calm head and guided his younger partner Cummins brilliantly to get as close as possible to the Indian total.
While Holder made 39 off 65 balls with the help of five boundaries, Cummins gave his skipper the right support from the other end by just staying at the crease although he couldn't open his account.
Cummins' determination to stay at the crease and give his skipper company can be gauged from the fact that he played 45 balls for no runs.
The Indian bowlers found it difficult to break the stubborn partnership between Holder and Cummins as they needed 85 balls in the opening session of the third day to dislodge the stand.
The partnership was finally broken when Holder edged a Mohammed Shami delivery to wicketkeeper Rishabh Pant behind the stumps in the 74th over.
Left-arm spinner Jadeja finally drew curtains on West Indies innings when he cleaned up Cummins an over later.
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3 US troops killed, 5 seriously wounded during Iran attacks, military says
Washington (AP): Three American service members have been killed and five others seriously wounded during the US attacks on Iran, the military said Sunday, marking the first American casualties in a major offensive that has sparked retaliation from the Islamic Republic.
US Central Command, which oversees the Middle East, announced the deaths in a post on X but did not say when and where they occurred. The statement said “several others sustained minor shrapnel injuries and concussions” and were going to return to duty.
Central Command described the situation “as fluid” and said it would withhold the identities of the service members who were killed for 24 hours after their families were notified.
The US military also denied Iranian claims that the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier was struck with ballistic missiles, saying on X that the “missiles launched didn't even come close.”
President Donald Trump had warned that American troops could be killed or injured in the operation.
“The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost, and we may have casualties,” the Republican president said in a video address released early Saturday. “That often happens in war. But we're doing this not for now. We're doing this for the future.”
Following the US-Israeli strikes that killed Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and other leaders, Iran's counterattacks have struck US bases in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.
Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard has threatened to launch its “most intense offensive operation” ever targeting Israeli and American military installations.
Before the strikes, Trump had built up the largest US military presence in the Middle East in decades. The arrival of the Lincoln and three accompanying guided-missile destroyers at the end of January bolstered the number of warships in the region.
The world's largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, and four accompanying destroyers later were dispatched from the Caribbean Sea to head to the Middle East.
The Ford was part of the US raid in Venezuela that captured leader Nicolás Maduro, who was brought to New York to face drug trafficking charges. The operation in January claimed no American lives but left seven US troops with gunshot wounds and shrapnel-related injuries.
One of those injured received the Medal of Honor during Trump's State of the Union address last week. Trump said Army Chief Warrant Officer 5 Eric Slover piloted the lead CH-47 Chinook helicopter that descended on the “heavily protected military fortress” where Maduro was staying.
Trump has launched several military operations during his second term, including strikes on members of the Islamic State group in Syria in retaliation for an ambush attack that killed two US troops and an American civilian interpreter in December.
The US military has also struck IS forces in Nigeria, after Trump accused the West African country's government of failing to rein in the targeting of Christians.
