Rain plays spoilsport on 2nd day after Ishant's double strike

Bad weather combined with persistence of Marlon Samuels and Shivnarine Chanderpaul to frustrate India as the West Indies reached 98 for five on the rain-hit second day of the second cricket Test.

Indian paceman Ishant Sharma struck twice in three balls to reduce the West Indies to 57 for five in the curtailed morning session after the hosts resumed at an uncomfortable 30 for three.

However, several rain interruptions and some sensible batting by Samuels (21) and Chanderpaul (20) gave India no chance to make further in-roads into the hosts' batting line up.

The two batsmen added 41 runs for the unconquered sixth wicket and batted together for 19.3 overs on a day when only 25.3 overs of play was possible on the day.

The tenor of the day was set early when a shower delayed the start of the game by 45 minutes. There was another break of half an hour after lunch but the resumption lasted no more than eight-odd overs.

Heavy rains lashed Kensington Oval in the second session which forced umpire to enforce an early tea in the hope of squeezing as much play as possible in the final session.

That opportunity never arrived. Even though it stopped raining after a while, early tea was taken and players even came out in the final session. It began raining almost immediately for players to go to pavilion. Thereafter it was poor light which never allowed the game to resume.

The most play possible was in the morning session as West Indies retired for lunch at 82 for 5 from 29 overs.

Both the overnight batsmen, Ramnaresh Sarwan (18) and Devendra Bishoo (13), fell prey to Ishant's bounce with the paceman bowling a spell of 6-2-23-2 in the morning.