Lara second highest West Indies run scorer in tests
- But Windies face uphill battle to avoid whitewash
By Tony Cozier at the ARG
Stabroek News
May 11, 2003
GRADUALLY over the first two sessions, then rapidly and conclusively over the last, the heartening, if belated, West Indies fight generated by Jermaine Lawson's raw aggression on Friday evaporated on the second day of the final Test yesterday.
As left-handed openers Justin Langer and Matthew Hayden built their highest partnership of the series through the final 39 overs to end the day, hammering a six and 22 fours to go to close unbeaten with 171 between them, the rare West Indian euphoria of the previous afternoon was transformed again into familiar gloom.
The contest - and, for the first time in the series, it had been a genuine contest - was clearly going to be decided on the second innings after first innings scores were level when the West Indies were bowled out at tea for the identical 240 Australia made.
To keep the balance, the West Indies required three or four wickets by close. They got none as Langer and Hayden asserted themselves, as one stage hammering 44 from four overs off the young off-spinner Omari Banks and the veteran Vasbert Drakes.
The former, in his second Test, was betrayed by his inexperience, the latter by the fatigue that must overcome a 33-year-old body subjected to as much work as he has had through the series.
Captain Brian Lara's tactics in the session were mystifying.
He restricted Lawson to six overs in one opening spell yet kept the 20-year-old Banks going for 15 consecutive overs when it was obvious he needed protection from the bludgeoning Australians.
He was unlucky with a couple of close decisions, umpire Venkataraghavan's rejection of a lobbed catch behind slip off Langer and a low chance to Lara at slip when Hayden was 47. But, by the end, as the pair accelerated, he hardly knew where to bowl.
With three days remaining - in other words, another 270 overs - and the dry pitch starting to produce varying bounce, the prospects of the fourth successive defeat and the first whitewash in a home series loom large.
The West Indies demean-our towards the end was that of a demoralised team and, after such a difficult series, it would take a psychological wizard to lift them.
Their batting is undeniably their strongest suit and this was their last chance to put the pressure on the Australians as they had it consistently put on them.
The pitch, with its steep, if even, bounce, encouraged Australia's four fast bowlers as it did Lawson with his seven wickets on Friday and they kept eating their way through the West Indies innings.
At criticial times, a couple of aerial drives that cost Ramnaresh Sarwan and Lara himself their wickets and the ridiculous run out of Ridley Jacobs, each time bringing promising partnerships to an end.
As usual, Lara presented Australia with their major threat and he was topscorer with 68, pushing him 8,000 Tests runs and ahead of Sir Garry Sobers, behind only Sir Viv Richards, on the West Indies list.
It was a peculiar innings divided into three distinct parts. The first 40 came from 30 balls before he went into hibernation for 19 scoreless deliveries, then awakened again. His problem was that he could find no one to stay with him long enough to mount a meaningful stand.
Until Langer and Hayden took the sting out of the West Indies effort after tea, the cricket was electric.
Like Lawson, Australia's fast bowlers, neutered by torpid surfaces that yielded one double and 12 individual single centuries in the previous matches, were stimulated by the sight of batsmen ducking and weaving and the wicket-keeper gathering the ball over his head.
The atmosphere was further charged by a verbal confrontation early in the piece between Lara and a few of the Australians, including rival captain Steve Waugh, that eventually brought the intervention of umpire David Shepherd.
Lara came in after 35 minutes when Brett Lee removed left-handed opener Devon Smith to a keeper's catch for 37, having dropped him on a return catch off his second ball of the morning.
As Smith headed off following umpire Venkataraghavan's delayed approved index finger dismissal, Hayden gestured to the batsman.
It seemingly goaded Lara into an animated verbal joust with the big Australian even before he faced up and triggered further animated discussion with Waugh and Darren Lehmann.
Once he took his guard, Lara cut his first ball, from Lee, onto the wall of the Richie Richardson Stand at third man for six, and reeled off seven fours in his first rapid-fire 40, sparing no one.
He watched from the non-striker's end as Lee dislodged nightwatchman Vasbert Drakes, lbw for 21 in the over after claiming Smith and had the company of vice-captain Sarwan for the next 50 minutes while 57 were scored at rapid rate.
Sarwan seemed intent on matching Lara stroke for stroke, always a risky option.
He counted five fours in 24, among them a top-edge from the dreaded hook shot, when he drove on the up against the underestimated Andy Bichel and presented a two-handed return catch.
This was the series for Sarwan to confirm the advances made last year in India and Bangladesh and more recently in the World Cup. Instead, he has taken a step backwards.
Shivnarine Chanderpaul has also seemed somewhere else since his 69-ball hundred in the first Test.
He lasted only 10 balls before he missed one from Glenn McGrath that sneaked in between bat and pad to hit off and middle stumps five minutes to lunch, taken at 140 for six. It was a case for careful rebuilding on resumption and Lara and fellow left-hander Ridley Jacobs sensibly consolidated on resumption with a stand of 45.
They remained together for 38 scoreless deliveries before Lara broke the drought and were regaining control when Jacobs' schoolboy lapse separated them.
The wicket-keeper has long had the habit of moving out of his ground after almost every shot, no matter whether a run is available or not.
He pushed Lee hard back down the pitch, lingered out of his ground and the television replay showed that Lee's quick and accurate throw to the stumps had him short by a couple of inches. It was a waste of a wicket but that seems to be the unshakeable way of this West Indies team.
By now, Lara had surpassed Sobers' 8,032 runs as the West Indies' second highest run scorer in Tests, now behind only Richards' 8,540, but he went in the next over.
For the fourth time in the series, Bichel was the bowler. Lara took six fours in an over off him in a tour match in Australia two years ago and seemed intent on repeating when he pulled the first three balls of the 56th over to the boundary. For variety, he drove the fourth and sent it fast but straight into Langer's waiting hands at mid-off.
A welcome late rally from Banks, Merv Dillon and Lawson brought that brought 43 runs from the last two wickets, including three handsome boundaries by Lawson off Lee in an over that yielded 14. But the West Indies could not get ahead once Lee clipped Dillon's off-stump and Lawson edged Stuart MacGill to slip.