THERE is nothing so sweet in sport as revenge and England continued to extract theirs on a remarkable second day of the second Test yesterday that yielded 437 runs, eight sixes and 55 fours from 88.4 overs.
No opposition was more repeatedly humiliated by the mighty teams under Clive Lloyd and Viv Richards in their decade of world dominance in the 1970s and 1980s than England. But they have been the last of the several others who have got their own back in the present period of West Indian decline.
They are rapidly making up for lost time. They reclaimed the Wisden Trophy after 31 years with their 3-1 triumph in England four years ago and emphatically retained it, 3-0 in the Caribbean, earlier this year.
They are now rubbing it in the return series.
Their victory in the first Test at Lord's on Monday was by 210 runs and, after two days of the second, they are in an equally commanding position as they were at the same stage then.
A week ago, the West Indies resumed the third day 203 for four replying to 568. This morning, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Brian Lara, vice-captain and captain, start at 184 for two with their partnership that has restored rapidly withering pride worth 172.
Sarwan, LBW cheaply in both innings at Lord's chose attack as the best means to gathering confidence and form while Lara, on the ground he once called home and scene of his first-class record unbeaten 501 ten years ago, was on song from his first ball.
They transformed a stuttering start in which both openers were removed for 12 with delightful batting, uninhibited by the team's precarious position.
Sarwan was unbeaten 87, stroking 16 boundaries in that pleasing, wristy way of his, initially taking risks to re-establish his confidence before settling down to a more ordered method.
Lara had a brief, but stirring, duel with Steve Harmison who struck fire from a lifeless pitch with four 90 miles-an-hour bouncers in one over that had the left-hander bobbing and weaving.
He came through it, the effort took its toll on the fast bowler whose eight overs cost 48, including a rare hook for six by the West Indies captain.
The present comparison between Lord's and now is only applicable to the state of the game.
At Lord's, the West Indies enjoyed a promising second day after a horrid first, dispatching the last seven England wickets for 41 when the fourth total in excess of 600 in the last 20 Tests appeared likely.
Until Sarwan and Lara came together 10 minutes before to show that not all the fight has gone out of West Indies cricket, the first two sessions were as desperate as any in recent times.
Given the overall record, the West Indies had an encouraging first day.
England were, late in the afternoon, 264 for five and, although Andy Flintoff and wicket-keeper Geraint Jones had pushed it to 313 for five by close, the second new ball was immediately due and there was cause at least for hope.
It rapidly disappeared in a flood of boundaries while Flintoff, as he had done in his 123 off 104 balls in the NatWest Series one-day international at Lord's last month, launched the kind of attack his predecessors frequently had to contend with from Richards, the original Master Blaster.
He began 42, punched the first ball he faced from the lack-lustre and, as it transpired, injured Pedro Collins to the cover boundary, and proceeded to energise a sell-out crowd in the hot sunshine as Ian Botham, a kindred spirit, used to do.
By the time Dwayne Bravo, the 20-year-old in his second Test and one West Indian not intimidated by the pyrotechnics, foxed him with a slower ball for an LBW decision midway through the day, Flintoff was 167.
It was his highest first-class, let alone, Test score and he returned to a standing ovation. He added six sixes to the one he struck on the previous day and another 13 fours to the four he had overnight.
He was especially merciless on Jermaine Lawson and Omari Banks.
The longest of his two sixes off Lawson, launched off the front foot on the up, landed in the top tier of the stand at long-on, a carry of fully 120 yards. The first was pulled over deep square-leg.
The fast bowler would not have been subjected to the indignity of the second had he latched on to a sharp, but no means impossible, two-handed return catch when Flintoff was 79.
As it was, he could generate no more than 83 miles an hour on the speed gun. It was a reduction of 10 miles an hour on the pace he reached before his year-long work to correct his flawed action and his six overs on the day were pummelled for 64.
Of those, 14 were in an over by Harmison, the No.11, The day before his 17 overs had yielded only 47.
Banks, the tall off-spinner, was hoisted straight and over long-on for three of Flintoff's other sixes on the day off the first two and the fifth ball of an over. The other was pulled off a long-hop leg-break from Sarwan.
The wicket-keeper Geraint Jones, 27 at the start, joined Flintoff in the fun. He moved from 27 to 74, sharing a partnership of 170 that occupied only two hours, 10 miniutes all told.
Corey Collymore gained his just deserts for an excellent spell of 12 successive overs from the start for 41 while there was mayhem at the opposite end.
He induced an edged catch from Jones' defensive stroke to an outswinger to separate the pair. Jones 74 came from 97 balls.
Flintoff was then 109 and, assisted by Ashley Giles and his own heavy bat, continued to crush West Indian spirits before Bravo removed him, as he had done Giles to a catch at midwicket off a full toss.
When Flintoff departed, there was an audible groan around Edgbaston before the stands rose to acclaim his exhilarating performance.
Little did they know there was more entertainment to come, in its way even more humiliating for the West Indies.
The left-handed James Anderson provided Banks with his only wicket, allowing Harmison to delight the crowd some more.
There was a reverse swept boundary off Banks, another square-driven off Bravo and, finally, an exquisite drive through extra-cover, a disdainful six over long-on and a lofted four over mid-off in one over from the beleagured Lawson.
He raced to his highest Test score, 31 off 18 balls, when Vaughan increased the embarrassment with a declaration.
When Devon Smith was taken, overhead at gully, and Chris Gayle bowled around his legs by Matthew Hoggard in the five overs available to tea, the prospects of another three day Edgbaston Test, with a different result to follow West Indies victories in 1995 and 2000, loomed.