Santa Claus unkind to Windies in S/Africa
- homesters in driving seat on 303-3 at end of second day
By Tony Cozier in DURBAN
Stabroek News
December 28, 2003
The West Indies Cricket Board has taken to writing an annual wish list to Santa Claus (if you don't believe me check their website).
They obviously have been naughty, not nice, for the fat man with the white beard has been especially unkind to their team this Christmas season.
He stuffed their stocking with disabled players and wrapped Boxing Day for the start of second Test against South Africa in weather so dank only the use of the floodlights allowed play.
He then caused them to bat first in the alien conditions on losing the toss and, after they had fought hard to recover from 17 for four and 50 for five to reach 264, turned the skies cloudless blue and the pitch lifeless on the second day yesterday for the South African batsmen to enjoy.
He added another injury to the lengthy list when Shivnarine Chanderpaul had to be replaced by Dwayne Smith as substitute while he sought attention for a leg strain early in the South African innings and touched the umpires with the meanness of Scrooge.
Instead, the generosity of spirit was extended by the West Indies bowlers to Herschelle Gibbs and JacquesKallis who clattered their abundant offerings of half-volleys and long-hops to all parts of the Kingsmead ground in a third wicket partnership of 168 at the rate of five runs an over.
There are few more exquisite strokeplayers in the game than Gibbs when he is on song, conditions are ideal and the bowling as compliant.
Playing his 54th Test, the 29-year-old opener compiled 142, unerringly punishing the West Indies' all-seam bowling on a flat, flawless pitch in sunny, cloudless weather that only changed after tea.
His favoured shots were pulls and sweetly timed drives that whistled through the off-side, of both front foot and back.
They brought him most of his 23 fours from the 175 balls he received in four and a quarter hours chanceless batting.
When the second day was halted under gloomy skies 16 overs ahead of schedule, even with the floodlights shining, South Africa was 303 for three, 39 ahead with Kallis, already a century-maker in the series, unbeaten 74 and proven batting down to Andrew Hall at No.9 to come.
It is a firm foundation on which they can add to their victory by 189 runs in the first Test in Johannesburg.
Hardly a ball passed Gibbs' bat as he compiled his 11th Test hundred, his first in 11 Tests against the West Indies.
His pointed comment afterwards was that "you can only play as well as the opposition allows you to." The opposition allowed him to display his full repertoire yesterday.
No bowler was blameless. Not one of them, not the experienced Merv Dillon and Vasbert Drakes, not the recalled Adam Sanford, not the distinctly pacy Fidel Edwards.
No one was able to complete an over with six balls on the same side of the wicket without a potential boundary.
The pattern was immediately set by Dillon whose second ball of the innings was a no-ball and the third square-cut for four by Graeme Smith. Gibbs took his first two off-side boundaries in Edwards' second over, prompting Brian Lara to station a fielder on the cover boundary.
He remained there throughout Gibbs' assault but had no hope of intercepting several of the boundaries.
The 29-year-old opener's acceleration was rapid. He arrived at his 50 off 86 balls by pulling Sanford for his eighth boundary.
Another 44 balls and he was at 100 with another pulled four, his 16th, off Drakes. The remaining 42 occupied 45 balls.
The closest the West Indies came to removing him before he dragged yet another pull off Sanford back into his off-stump an hour and five minutes after tea was at 68 when he got the better of a close lbw decision off Edwards, who bowled with his usual pace and heart but too little control.
Kallis joined Gibbs after the dismissal of the left-handers, captain Smith and the No.3 Jacques Rudolph.
Smith fell to a well executed strategy. It took his 134 in the first Test for the planners to recognise that the off is his weaker side and the cut or sliced drive the likeliest option for dismissing him, as he twice was in Johannesburg.
This time, he carved a cut off Edwards just over gully's head before he found Ramnaresh Sarwan's lap at deep backward point with a similar stroke.
Rudolph took advantage of some loose early stuff from Sanford to get going but the Antiguan policeman located his line right, kept teasing him outside off-stump and was rewarded when, deciding too late to pull out of a cut shot, he lobbed a catch to gully.
At 99 for two, the West Indies had made an encouraging start but already the bowling was inconsistent and indisciplined and Gibbs was enjoying it.
Kallis took his time to settle, prepared to tag along in Gibbs' slipstream, letting his rampant partner indulge himself.
Yet he seldom missed a chance to punish the several loose balls, gathering eight fours in the four-and-a-quarter hours he has been in.
In such circumstances, the West Indies need all the luck they can get but they had another cruel break when Kallis was 48, at 236 for two, and umpire Simon Taufel missed an edge to Ridley Jacobs off Drakes that was detected on television replays.
Kallis had become the second South African to pass 5,000 Test runs when he and partner Gary Kirsten, the first to the landmark, accepted the offer of Taufel and colleague Darel Hair to end play because of the uneven light.
It seemed an unusual decision, given that the West Indies had batted throughout the 65 overs of the first day in similarly murky light under the floodlights that were now deemed to be inadequate.
The changed nature of the pitch that had lost its early life by mid-afternoon on the first day was evident in the West Indies' ninth wicket stand between Drakes and Sanford.
It was worth 41 at the start and was extended to 70 in the first three-quarter of an hour as Drakes, 40 overnight, moved to 67 with a number of handsome cover-drives Gibbs would expand on later in the day.
His highest Test score was ended with a hook off Andre Nel's first ball of the day that spiralled high into the air for wicket-keeper Mark Boucher to gather a well-judged catch.
Fast bowler Makhaya Ntini removed Sanford after two hours of defiance to complete the innings with final figures of five for 66, his second such return in the series.