When it finally comes time for him to end his cricket career, there is a post ready and awaiting Ridley Jacobs in the Good Samaritans.

No one has saved more lost causes for the West Indies than their oldest and doughtiest fighter and he was it again yesterday.

His unpretentious, but effective left-handed batting, and his last wicket partnership with Fidel Edwards, the new fast-bowler who clearly shares the same fighting spirit, defied Zimbabwe for the last 11.1 overs of the first Test to avert a defeat as crushing and humiliating as any of those outside the Caribbean during Jacobs’ tenure of five years.

The35-year-old wicket-keeper, saviour of many similar causes in his previous 51 Tests, and the 21-year-old right-handed Ed-wards, in his second, hung on grimly, but with no real alarms.

Jacobs remained two hours, 40 minutes all totaled, handling 146 balls without a blemish although he was shaken during a hostile spell of real pace by Andy Blignaut during which he was hit on body and glove in the same over.

Edwards, who batted with aplomb for his first innings 18, remained for just over half-hour and kept out 33 balls with the skill of a bowler whose batting credentials need to be worked on by coaches.

As Zimbabwe worked their way through the order and into the tail, Blignaut was operating with six slips and left-arm spinner Ray Price and, in the end, off-spinner Trevor Gripper with every fielder encircling the batsmen within hand-shaking distance.

The fading light meant captain Heath Streak could not risk his fast-bowlers.

He had to use spin from both ends, a clear advantage for Jacobs and Edwards.

Finally, umpires Simon Taufel and Billy Bowden removed bails in the gathering gloom with the 83 overs originally allocated for the innings complete but eight minutes remaining on the clock. The reason, Taufel explained, was the fast fading light.

The Zimbabweans were crestfallen as they left the field.

They had outplayed the West Indies from midway through the opening day, when they were 154 for five, but could not close the deal.

That shaky early start was converted to 507 for nine declared that all but placed the match beyond the West Indies reach.

Even though he could not claim the follow-on the previous day, Streak felt safe enough to declare his second innings yesterday at 200 for seven three-quarters of an hour to lunch.

It challenged the West Indies to score 373 from a minimum 83 overs. While they had managed similar targets in the past - 348 for five off 69 overs against New Zealand in Auckland in 1969 and the more memorable 344 for one off 66.1 overs against England at Lord’s in 1984 - this was asking too much on a surface yielding turn.

Before the declaration, Vasbert Drakes added the wickets of Craig Wishart, bowled with bat raised to an off-cutter, and Tatenda Taibu, who played on for the second time in the match.

Corey Collymore accounted for Blignaut as the declaration neared with Stuart Mazakenyeri, the 20-year-old on debut, following his first innings 57 with another polished 46, unbeaten.

There was ample time for Streak, named Man-of-the-Match for his unbeaten 127 that underpinned Zimbabwe’s huge first innings, his effective swing bowling and his leadership, to set the West Indies an improbable, but not impossible, 373.

By the time Jacobs entered the fray 20 minutes before tea, any fleeting thoughts of pursuing the target had long since vanished and the danger of defeat loomed.

The key period of play came soon after lunch when the West Indies lost Wavell Hinds, Chris Gayle and, most critical of all, Brian Lara within 14 balls for one run soon after lunch to be 37 for three.

Streak accounted for Hinds whose forcing shot off the hip was caught at a carefully positioned short square-leg.

Three balls later, Gayle launched himself into an expansive square-drive to a ball from Price so wide he just managed to touch it into Taibu’s gloves.

Off the last ball of Streak’s next over, Lara was given a rough LBW decision from umpire Bowden.

He padded away his seventh ball and, delivered from over the wicket, it would probably have missed off-stump. But the eccentric New Zealander answered frantic Zimbabwean appeals by raising his crooked finger of fate.

The West Indies were 37 for three and any slim hint that the target might be attainable had gone.

For the next 50 minutes, Daren Ganga, as composed as he was in his first innings 73, and Ramnaresh Sarwan consolidated but the revival was not sustained for long.

Price went past Ganga’s on-drive, a dangerous stroke to the ball spinning away from the bat, and Sarwan, who stayed an hour and a half for 39, perished when little Tatenda Taibu punished a wild swipe off Gripper with a swift piece of stumping.

It was recklessness that followed the similar indifference of Hinds and Gayle but it was unbecoming of a player appointed vice-captain last March with an eye to the future.

It left the West Indies 103 for five, with as many as 44.2 overs remaining and hope evaporating.

Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Jacobs held firm for an hour and 10 minutes in a left-handed stand either side of tea, adding 68. But the decline continued when Chanderpaul prodded a simple catch at straight mid-wicket off the persevering Prince.

In his spell of seven overs of hostility during which he peppered Jacobs with blows to glove and body, Blignaut dispatched Vasbert Drakes and Jerome Taylor to edged catches to keeper and fifth slip.

When Price claimed Collymore, to a close-in catch as his 10th wicket of the match, with as many as 11.3 overs available, excited Zimbabweans on the field and off it celebrated as if the result was settled. With their level-headed application, Jacobs and Edwards saw to it that it wasn’t.