SPARKLING hundreds by a pair of gallant Guyanese, one battered and bruised but unbowed, the other carrying an injury and a colleague to do his running, saved the West Indies complete humiliation in the second Test here yesterday but not defeat by an innings and 65 runs with a day to spare.
Vice-captain Ramnaresh Sarwan needed on-field medical attention after blows to the knee when he was 12 and to the back of the helmet from a Makhaya Ntini bouncer that left him down and dazed when he was 28. But he got up each time to stroke 18 fours, most sweetly timed off-side shots, in 114, his third Test hundred.
His left-handed countryman Shivnarine Chanderpaul's strained thigh muscle, sustained on the second day, required the services of Daren Ganga as his runner when, under the regulations, he came in at No.7, two places below his usual position. But the greater discomfort was the bowlers' as Chanderpaul hit them 20 times to all points of the boundary ropes, and once into the stands, in compiling 109, his ninth hundred in his 70th Test. Their partnership of 113 was the West Indies' best for the sixth wicket against South Africa, surpassing the 98 between captain Brian Lara and Ridley Jacobs in the first innings.
Sarwan and Chanderpaul were two of Ntini's three victims as the innings was ended for 329, three overs into the additional eight claimed by the South Africans to complete their job at the end of the extended day. The result, the West Indies' 27th defeat in their last 36 overseas Tests since 1997, gave South Africa an unassailable 2-0 lead in the four match series following their win by 189 runs in the first in Johannesburg.
But captain Brian Lara proclaimed afterwards there was "no chance" of a repeat of the whitewash the West Indies received under his leadership in the five Tests on the previous South African tour five years ago. "It's not going to happen," he said. "We're improving, we're getting the runs that are necessary," he said. "We've got a bowling problem but that's a much easier problem to put together than if all our batters were failing."
Lara, the premier batsman, seemed to hold the key to his team's chances of at least extending his 100th Test into the final day, if not saving it, after they trailed South Africa's massive 658 for nine declared by 394. But he was unusually tense in eeking out 11 from 71 balls in an hour and 35 minutes in the morning before he clipped a catch to square-leg off an ordinary ball from medium-pacer Andrew Hall. As is frustratingly familiar, he was forced to make an early entrance after the openers Wavell Hinds and Ganga were out inside the first half-hour.
the left-handed Hinds' utter lack of form and confidence was evident in his indeterminate response to a full length delivery in Andre Nel's first over that passed his crooked bat to hit off-stump. In the next over, Ganga was uncertainly half-forward to a ball that would have taken the top of leg-stump but for the intervention of the front pad - and a thin inside-edge that the television replay revealed but escaped umpire Simon Taufel.
While Sarwan got into his cover and off-driving off Nel and Ntini, both before and after his couple of knocks, Lara spent an hour at the other end garnering just a couple of singles. He still hadn't released the hand brake when his constrained stroke off his legs placed the ball directly into Neil McKenzie's lap at square-leg.
Carlton Baugh, out of his position and his depth at No.5, lasted nine uncertain balls, the last of which he drove tamely to mid-off from Jacques Kallis so that the West Indies went to lunch at 96 for four with an uncertain afternoon ahead. They were 130 for five and in danger of an early demise when Ridley Jacobs drove occasional leg-spinner Jacques Rudolph directly into mid-off's lap.
For the next two hours, 25 minutes, Sarwan and Chanderpaul stole the spotlight from the South Africans and lifted spirits among their teammates with batting in the best West Indian tradition.
Sarwan was already 65 and in full flow when Chander-paul arrived, with Ganga by his side. At first, Chanderpaul appeared distracted.
He had gathered only a couple of runs when he pushed an ordinary leg break from Rudolph onto Martin van Jaarsfeld's ankle at short-leg and he took a little time to get his bearings.
Once he had, he joined Sarwan in their free-scoring stand that accentuated the quality of the pitch and exposed the limitations of the South African bowling. Sarwan raised his 100 off his 187th ball with an exquisite straight-driven boundary off Rudolph, his 17th, prompting wicket-keeper Mark Boucher, leading South Africa throughout the day while Graeme Smith had treatment on a strained groin muscle, to claim the second new ball after 81 overs.
Chanderpaul had another, difficult chance to van Jaarsfeld, high and right-handed at gully, that gave him the runs to raise his 50, proving that South Africans can be fallible in the field too, if not often. Unbothered, the neat left-hander immediately produced two straight-driven boundaries off Shaun Pollock. The first, off the back foot with the minimum of effort, was the shot of the day, if not the match, if not the series, if not the year.
Chanderpaul was 58 when Ntini sent back Sarwan who deflected his 225th ball from the under-edge of a defensive bat into leg-stump in the seventh over with the second new ball.
Conscious that only the four fast bowlers remained to keep him company, he expanded his strokes to add another 12 fours in his next 51 from 71 balls. It would have been several more had he not declined several palpable singles once No.10 Adam Sanford joined him following the exits of Vasbert Drakes and Merv Dillon in the same Ntini over to catches fended to short-leg and low to third slip. As he did in the first innings, Sanford batted defiantly to see Chanderpaul from 79 past his 100 while they added 46.
The muscular fast bowler blocked the good balls, thumped one long-hop from Rudolph for six and took a couple of fours as well once Herschelle Gibbs had put down him down at extra-cover, the third missed catch of the day. Chanderpaul went to his landmark with his 17th and 18th fours, the first a fierce cut, the second a top-edged hook over the keeper off Nel. He paused to kiss the pitch, now an estbalished ritual and, in this case, appropriate recognition of the true, even surface. It took something spectacular to get rid of him, a leaping, right-handed catch by McKenzie at short-extra cover off Ntini who formalised the result quarter-hour later with an outswinger that Fidel Edwards snicked to Boucher.