AN extended international season that started in familiar controversy, confusion and failure ended yesterday with a joyous and significant victory for a team too long overwhelmed by the spectre of defeat.
The triumph over Sri Lanka in the second and final Test, by the conclusive margin of seven wickets, clinched the brief series 1-0 after the drawn, rain-ruined match in St. Lucia.
It was completed with the panache that, even in the worst times, has set West Indies cricket apart from the rest and to the familiar backdrop of bacchanalian celebrations from a crowd of 10,000 witnessing the West Indies’ fifth successive win at Sabina Park.
Following the historic comeback in the final Test in the preceding series against mighty Australia, it is a further, enormous boost for Brian Lara, in his second coming as captain, and the remarkably young team he has assembled under him.
The next assignments, in Zimbabwe and South Africa later in the year, can now be tackled with genuine optimism.
Fittingly, Lara himself was at the heart of the effort yesterday with an unbeaten 80 off 90 balls, another dazzling innings against opponents who have full justification for complaint to some human rights organization against the punishment he has repeatedly inflicted on them.
But he was by no means alone.
Corey Collymore, for so long the forgotten man of West Indies cricket, and vice-captain Ramnaresh Sarwan, who contributed an equally breathtaking 82 in a partnership of 161 with Lara that sealed the deal, were equally involved.
The result was set up in the morning by Collymore whose every over since his return with five wickets in the first Test in St. Lucia heightens the mystery over the four years doubting selectors classified him strictly as a one-day bowler.
The bustling 25-year-old Barbadian dispatched the last five Sri Lankan wickets that fell for 65 on his own, completing the stunning, but deserving, figures of seven for 58.
He was named Man of the Match and the Series, deserving credit not only for his returns in the two matches but for his patience and discipline.
Sri Lanka’s second innings was restricted to 194 that kept the winning target down to 212. It would be the highest total of a low scoring match and a hard, tense struggle appeared in prospect. The task became increasingly more difficult when the openers went cheaply.
In the six overs to lunch, Chris Gayle was LBW for 0 to Chaminda Vaas, the left-arm swinger, for the fourth time in their last six meetings. Three-quarters of an hour into the second session, Wavell Hinds was bowled by Muttiah Muralitharan, missing a violent sweep.
So Lara arrived at 57 for two with the match still in the balance.
He announced himself first ball with a savage sweep for the first of his nine fours off Muralitharan with whom, yet again, he became engaged in a fascinating duel.
Requiring eye drops to clear his vision, inserted just after he came in, Lara was never entirely at ease against the wily little off-spinner, repeatedly using his pad.
At least once, he was relieved to find umpire Russell Tiffin ruling a straight ball to be just missing leg-stump.
Sarwan played with more assurance and only once had an anxious moment. He was 49 in the over before tea when the TV replays showed that he managed to slide his toe back just in time to beat wicket-keeper Romesh Kaluwitharana’s stumping.
While Muralitharan kept things in check, the runs haemhorraged from the fast bowlers who had been so dangerous in the first innings.
Tea was taken at 120 for two, 91 away from the goal, and the outcome was settled in a volley of boundaries from both batsmen on resumption.
Prabath Nissanka, the tall fast bowler who had five wickets in the first innings, was taken for 27 from two overs. Lara greeted him with two fours in the first and Sarwan with a hooked six and two driven fours in his second.
The Sri Lankans were powerless to stop the barrage after that. Their one chance for a consolation wicket was spilled by Dharmasena at long-leg off Lara’s hook from Vaas but, by then, the result was already all but settled.
Lara celebrated his repreive with a hook for six off Vaas as the onslaught brought 91 off 10.3 overs against the backdrop of the noisy, jumping, whistling, flag-waving stands when, with scores level, Sarwan’s innings ended in the anti-climax of a catch at cover off Vaas.
Sarwan deserved a better end for he has seldom batted with more authority, not even in his 105 in the famous Antigua win over Australia.
Yet it did allow Lara to formalise the result with a single off Muralitharan’s misfield in the next over with 32 overs still available for the day.
The match might well have extended into a fourth day but for Collymore’s continuing intervention at the start.
He struck with his 10th ball after Sri Lanka resumed at 129 for five, an overall lead of 146, beating left-handed Sri Lankan captain Hashan Tillakaratne’s cross-batted defence to hit off-stump.
It committed the remainder of the innings to the all-rounders and bowlers but Dhamasena and Vaas raised a few concerns for Lara with a counter-attacking partnership of 35 that obliged him to summon Collymore for a second spell, switching ends to the north.
The bowler immediately obliged by removing both batsmen to slip catches to Lara in his first over, Dharmasena with his first ball, Vaas brilliantly taken, inches from the ground, two balls later.
He rounded off the innings as Muralitharan skied a catch to mid-off and the thrashing left-handed Thilan Thushara provided Lara with his third slip catch of the day.
It left the West Indies’ fate in the hands of the batsmen and Lara and Sarwan saw to it that Collymore’s efforts weren’t wasted.