Umar Gul (right) celebrates dismissing Brian Lara in Lahore on Saturday. (Reuters)

Lahore: Fast bowlers Umar Gul and Shahid Nazir demolished the West Indies batting line-up Saturday to leave Pakistan in a strong position after the opening day of the first Test.

Nazir (three for 42) made short work of the top order in the morning session and Gul (five for 65) mopped up the tailenders with his third career five-wicket haul to dismissed the West Indies for 206.

Pakistan were 39 for one in reply when bad light ended the day’s play 18 overs before the scheduled stumps.

Mohammed Hafeez was batting on 11, while Younis Khan hit his 1,000th Test run of the year and was batting on 10.

West Indies captain Brian Lara struck a defiant 61 and led a brief recovery in the second session before he was caught behind off Gul after hitting eight boundaries in his 106-ball knock. It was Lara’s first half-century in five Test matches in Pakistan — beating his previous best of 44 made in his debut Test here at the Gaddafi 16 years ago.

Gul removed Jerome Taylor (8) and Dave (35) off successive deliveries before finishing off the West Indies. Earlier, the West Indies slipped to 122 for six before lunch after Nazir struck three times in as many overs.

Meanwhile, in Lahore the Pakistan team’s strong influence of religion came to light again Sunday when they forced the event managers to stop playing music during the lunch interval of the first Test against the West Indies.

An official said on condition of anonymity that the Pakistani players had specifically told the event managers not to play any music during the breaks as it was the time they prayed together.