Veteran off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin starred with the ball as India dominated West Indies on the opening day of the first Test in Dominica.

Ashwin ran through the Caribbean batting line-up, returning with his 33rd five-wicket haul (5/60) in the longest format. Kraigg Brathwaite, Tagenarine Chanderpaul, Alick Athanaze, Alzarri Joseph and Jomel Warrican were his victims with the ball.

Thanks to his stunning spell, the visitors bundled out the hosts for a paltry 150 in 64.3 overs in their first innings.

After the day’s play, former cricketer Pragyan Ojha hailed Ashwin for his exceptional bowling performance.

“He has got four hundreds against them. He made his debut against them, picking wickets and has done wonderfully well. The way he set up the batters was brilliant. He was varying his pace and the West Indies batters did not have answers to the questions that were thrown by Ashwin to them,” Ojha was quoted as saying to Jio Cinema.

“The way he wrapped up the innings shows how important he is for the Indian team,” he added.

With this five-wicket haul, Ashwin also became the third Indian bowler after Harbhajan Singh and Anil Kumble to claim 700 wickets in international cricket.

The ace spinner produced this performance after being left out of the WTC final against Australia at The Oval last month.

“If you see all the champion players, they cross that hurdle and make sure that they always deliver when the team needs them. Ashwin has always been special with the ball and he continues to do that,” Ojha added.

Coming to the first Test, India reached 80/0 at stumps on Day 1 in Dominica, trailing the hosts by 70 runs. Yashasvi Jaiswal (40*) and Rohit Sharma (30*) were unbeaten in the middle for the touring team.