LAHORE, 12 November 2006 — Despite a classy knock of 61, Brian Lara must be regretting his decision to bat first after winning the toss when the West Indies collapsed for 206 before tea, in the first innings of the opening Test against Pakistan here yesterday. At close of play Pakistan had replied with 39 for one.

Lara quite certainly misread the newly laid strip at the Gaddafi Stadium but he may not be the only one to be deceived as quite a few experts were also of the view that the pitch would not help the bowlers, seamers in particular, and the lack of grass would slow down the pace of the ball which would favor the batsmen. Surprisingly, the West Indies captain did not take into account the overcast conditions in Lahore which were bound to help swing, both in the air and of the seam.

And that is what Pakistani seamers did quite admirably, to demolish a strong West Indies batting line up — they moved the ball alarmingly in the first hour of the opening day’s play when the visitors lost three wickets within five runs.

Pakistan’s second-string fast bowlers, Umar Gul and Shahid Nazir, between them accounted for eight wickets including that of Lara, who fought a lone battle to salvage the innings before being caught by Kamran Akmal off Gul.

Gul returned with figures of 5-65 and was well supported by Nazir (3-42), leg-spinner Danish Kaneria accounting for the remaining two wickets.

Gul and in particular Nazir, bowled extremely well during the first hour of the morning session and dispelled fears Pakistan would miss their two key strike bowlers, Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif, who were banned after testing positive for steroids last week.

Gul, who initiated the downfall of West Indies batting by having opener Darren Ganga caught by Younis when the score was 41, took four wickets in his third spell after lunch including the prize wicket of the world’s top batsman.

The West Indian captain hit Gul for two boundaries to reach his 48th Test half century, surprisingly his first in five Tests in Pakistan. Gul had his revenge when he produced an unplayable in-swinger which took an edge off Lara’s bat and was caught by Akmal behind the wickets. Lara, whose previous best of 44 in Pakistan was in his debut Test 16 years ago, hit eight boundaries during his fighting 155-minute knock.

He added 44 with Dwayne Bravo (32) for the fifth wicket and another 52 for the seventh wicket with Dave Mohammed who made 35.

Gul mowed down the tail in no time for his third five-wicket haul in his 12th Test, also completing his 50 wickets in Test cricket.

The first session undoubtedly belonged to Pakistan and skipper Inzamam ul-Haq must be a very relaxed man after nerve-racking three months since the Oval debacle which led to a four ODI ban slammed by the ICC. He has already served ban of three ODIs and will have to sit out during the first one-dayer against the West Indies later next month.

West Indies, who won the toss and elected to bat, were off to a flying start before Gul struck by removing Ganga for three.

Nazir then took three wickets off 12 deliveries to rock the tourists, trapping Chris Gayle leg-before for 34, Ramnaresh Sarwan (3) caught in the slip and Shivnarine Chanderpaul (5) leg-before to leave West Indies reeling at 52-4. However, Gayle who hit six boundaries in his rapid 34 was somewhat unlucky as the decision against him left much to be desired.

Dwayne Bravo, who hit a brilliant 108 in his team’s tour opener earlier this week, holed out to Kaneria for 32 and Denesh Ramdin (12) miscued a sweep off Kaneria’s last ball before lunch to leave West Indies 122-6. Pakistan resumed their reply through Mohammad Hafeez and Imran Farhat just after tea as the two batted quite confidently against the sizzling attack of Fidel Edwards and Jerome Taylor. Pakistan lost Farhat but Younis and Hafeez saw the rest of the time of as play had to be curtailed by 18 overs due to bad light.