Bourda thriller ends in disgrace - match declared a tie
by Frederick Halley
THE fifth Cable and Wireless one-day International between the West Indies and Australia ended in total confusion yesterday and was later declared a tie after a disgraceful show by spectators at the Georgetown Cricket Club (GCC) ground, Bourda. In an almost identical repeat of what took place at the same venue when the West Indies opposed Pakistan in 1993, unthinking spectators invaded the Bourda sward with West Indies, like they were then, in with an excellent chance of pulling off victory and a 3-2 lead in the seven-match series. Match referee Raman Suba Row, who ruled yesterday's match a tie, was also the man in charge of the game six years ago when he also declared a tie. A prelude of what was to come occurred in the penultimate over when a section of the sell-out crowd, thinking that the match had ended after the main scoreboard had indicated that 30 overs were completed, swarmed to the middle. They uprooted stumps, jostled players and created mayhem before thousands of other fans in the ground and stunned millions following the game on radio and television in and outside Guyana. The Police deployed at the ground dispersed them, retrieved the stumps, and after Suba Row spoke with the captains, the match continued. But the Police could do little to stop the `final assault'. In the melee that followed, some of the spectators even tried to snatch Australian skipper Steve Waugh's bat in an ugly spectacle. The tension had grown after Waugh and his deputy Shane Warne had rescued the visitors from a precarious 119 for seven in the 23rd over, in a game reduced to 30 overs following a late start because of early morning showers. Set 174 for victory after West Indies had hit a challenging 173 for five in their allotted 30 overs, the experienced pair needed four runs from the last delivery bowled by Keith Arthurton. The over started with the visitors needing six runs to win. The first delivery was struck by Waugh for two runs but clever bowling by Arthurton kept him in check for the next four. The home team appeared to ease home by one run after Waugh failed to hit the required boundary off the final delivery but the match referee ruled that the crowd invasion at that point prevented the Australians from making a third run to tie the game. Waugh, who struck an unbeaten 71 from 65 balls with three towering sixes and Warne (19 not out) with a six and a four, looked set to take their team into a 3-2 lead after belting 15 from off-spinner Carl Hooper's last over and 10 in the penultimate over from veteran fast bowler Courtney Walsh. The Australians were jolted by a double blow in the sixth over by fast bowler Mervyn Dillon. Opener Mark Waugh (five), in attempting to flick the lanky pacer through mid-wicket, succeeding in finding captain Jimmy Adams at mid-on while Ricky Ponting played on to the next delivery. The in-form Darren Lehmann, who averted the hat-trick, departed at 50, when he lost his off stump trying to cut Hooper. Opener Adam Gilchrist, whose fluent 44 included two sixes and five fours from 43 balls, was magnificently run out by a direct throw from Hendy Bryan from deep mid-wicket as he ambled back to his crease, Australia slipping to 70 for four in the 14th over. Waugh, whose performance prior to this match was quite disappointing after his heroics in the Test series, kept Australia in the game by adding 46 in eight overs with the dangerous looking Michael `The Finisher' Bevan. This time, however, the latter failed to finish when Phil Simmons knocked back his stumps for 16. Simmons sent the Bourda crowd into ecstasy by shattering Shane Lee's stumps with his next delivery and it soon became 116 for seven when Tom Moody skied Dillon to Bryan at long-off. Stand-in West Indies captain Adams, like Brian Lara, failed to beat Steve Waugh to the coin when the game finally got started at 13:00 hrs with the boundary being reduced by the aid of rope because of the wet edges. Consistent Sherwin Campbell (41) and new-look opener Ridley Jacobs (33) gave their side a rollicking start of 83 in 14 overs before Campbell, with scores of 62, 46, 64 and 13 in the four previous encounters, was marvellously taken one-handed by Lee in his follow through. His innings contained four fours from 41 balls. The effervescent Jacobs followed one run later, offering Steve Waugh a `dolly' at short mid-wicket in the very over. The crowd, who had given Carl Hooper a generous ovation, went into silence when at 100 in the 18th over, the elegant right-hander failed to negotiate a Warne leg-spinner and was left stranded down the wicket. Warne struck again two balls later when Adams (seven) was deceived and bowled. Shivnarine Chanderpaul (27) and Stuart Williams (30 not out) mixed aggression with defence in a 42-run stand to stable the middle order before the big-hitting Simmons lashed two sixes in his brief five-ball innings to entertain the crowd as the West Indies ended on 173 for five. At the start of the Australian innings, no one expected that after six years, history would have repeated itself. The tie means the series is still level at 2-2 with back-to-back games set for the Kensington Oval, Barbados on Saturday and Sunday.
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