West Indies spinner achieves 113-year first by opening the bowling against Pakistan
Cricket
Motie became first-ever spinner from West Indies to open bowling in very first innings of a Test.
MULTAN (Web Desk) - West Indies spinner Gudakesh Motie entered the record books when he opened the bowling on day one of the first Test against Pakistan in Multan today (January 17).
The start of the first Test was delayed due to fog after which Pakistan won the toss and elected to bat first. Both the hosts and the visitors named one debutant each in their XIs - Pakistan playing Mohammad Huraira in place of the injured Saim Ayub and West Indies playing wicketkeeper Tevin Imlach, replacing vice-captain Joshua da Silva.
The construction of Pakistan's bowling attack, comprising only one seam bowling option and four spinners was enough of a giveaway for the kind of surface to expect in Multan. West Indies went in with three spin-bowling options as well, and started with one of them, Motie.
A FIRST IN WEST INDIES' TEST CRICKET HISTORY
When Motie sent down the first ball of the Test match to Pakistan captain Shan Masood, he became the first-ever spinner from West Indies to open the bowling in the very first innings of a Test. The last spinner from any country to do so was Sajid Khan against England in Rawalpindi nearly three months back.
In fact, so rich has been the history of West Indies' fast bowling, that there had only ever been four instances of a spinner from the Caribbean bowling the first over of a Test innings. Three of those four instances came in 2021, while the first one was in 1950. None of them came in the first or second innings, before today.
FIRST NON-ASIAN SPINNER IN 113 YEARS TO OPEN THE BOWLING IN A TEST
Overall, this was only the 30th instance of a spinner opening the bowling in the first innings of a Test match. The previous nine instances were all by Asian bowlers - three from Bangladesh, four from India, and two from Pakistan.
The last non-Asian spinner to bowl the first ball of a Test match was South Africa's Aubrey Faulkner in 1912. In fact, with no Asian team having played Test cricket by then, each of the 19 such instances leading up to Faulkner's in 1912 were involving non-Asian teams.
