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Day 2: West Indies hopes dashed

Brian Lara's bizarre dismissal yesterday set off a late collapse staggering even by recent West Indian standards.

It instantly deflated hopes of a revival of the spirit and left Australia in complete command after two days of the first Test.

Lara was positively unravelling himself from the shackles of negativity, public criticism and self-doubt that have enveloped him since the 5-0 drubbing in the series in South Africa when he played his old adversary Shane Warne firmly to silly mid-on.

Under the mistaken notion that the ball had gone through, he drifted out of his crease and was run out by Justin Langer's alert underarm flick to wicket-keeper Ian Healy, a dismissal that had to be confirmed by TV replay umpire Clyde Cumberbatch.

The beleaguered West Indies captain had stroked 11 elegant boundaries with all the assurance of old, treating pace and spin with the same facility.

His 62, and his earlier second-wicket partnership with the equally belligerent Dave Joseph, had mounted a positive response to Australia's first innings 269.

Lara trudged off to the stunned silence of 16 000 of his countrymen, who had celebrated his every shot with characteristic bacchanalian delight, the West Indies 149 for four.

The steelbands did not beat again over the remaining 50 minutes as six wickets tumbled for 18 runs off 11.2 overs, the last off the final ball. It left the West Indies 167 for nine, 102 in arrears, with little chance of avoiding yet another defeat.

Leg-spinner Stuart MacGill, earlier hit around by Lara and Joseph with no bother, now found more compliant batsmen who were bemused by his sharp leg-breaks and googlies.

He despatched the left-handers Ridley Jacobs lbw, uncertainly stretching out, and the becalmed Jimmy Adams, bowled driving, with huge leg-breaks and, finally, the incapacitated Roland Holder.

Holder hobbled out at No. 8 with Sherwin Campbell as his runner with an over to go but he couldn't last it out, going back to the last ball, a googly delivered from round the wicket, that claimed him lbw, MacGill's 50th wicket in his ninth Test.

Pedro Collins, a genuine tailender in his debut Test, had been sent in as nightwatchman at Jacobs' dismissal.

When he comfortably kept out three overs of MacGill and Warne, and watched Adams' dismissal from the opposite end, Steve Waugh summoned his premier fast bowler, Glenn McGrath, who sent back Collins and Curtly Ambrose in his first over.

It was the type of capitulation that had become standard fare in South Africa. It was accentuated here by the absence of two middle-order stalwarts: Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Carl Hooper.

Australia initially gained the psychological advantage through an utterly frustrating last-wicket partnership of 66, the highest of the innings, between Jason Gillespie and McGrath, neither with any batting credentials. They briefly lost it while Lara and Joseph were on the attack but firmly reclaimed it once they rid themselves of Lara.

The last pair, each recording his highest Test score, pushed Australia from a modest 203 for nine, following three wickets to the deserving Ambrose, to 269, a commanding total against a suspect batting team.

Ambrose's removal of Warne, to a catch at point, and Greg Blewett, lbw, and MacGill, bowled, from successive balls immediately after the drinks break, were encouraging.

Gillespie and McGrath proceeded to upset the plans. Throughout their association, the West Indies looked as lifeless as the pitch.

The Australians then made the customary early breakthrough by removing the openers, the newcomer Suruj Ragoonath chaotically run out at the non-striker's end in the third over on a misfield, and Sherwin Campbell, beaten by a full-length off-cutter from McGrath and lbw for nine even before Waugh had turned to his spinners.

Once more, Lara found himself entering at No. 4 in a crisis.

He received the usual rapturous reception from his home crowd but, publicly berated by the West Indies Board for his lack of leadership on the recent ill-fated tour of South Africa and named captain only for the two Tests, he was under enormous pressure.

His immediate adversary was McGrath who so troubled him in their last series in Australia three seasons ago, but he kept cool and made a start.

He went to tea with six to his name. On resumption, he and Joseph set about the bowling with such gusto that the Australian total began to look merely modest.

No. 3 is an unfamiliar position for Joseph, who has gone either No. 4 or 5 in his 10 seasons for the Leewards. But, like his fellow Antiguan Jacobs, such trivialities clearly do not bother.

Like Jacobs, he has taken a long time to gain Test selection and, like Jacobs, he is clearly not about to waste the belated chance.

He had to endure an agonising wait on 19 when Cumberbatch made the first of his difficult decisions for the day, determining that a run-out call against Joseph on McGrath's return to wicket-keeper Ian Healy was too close to call.

Warne and MacGill seldom beat either his bat or his captain's but Waugh always had the admirable McGrath up his sleeve.

He recalled him after Joseph had rifled MacGill for a straight four and hoisted him straight for six off successive balls to raise the 100 and on-drove and cut Warne for two more to raise his individual 50.

Joseph drove at his first ball, missed and umpire Peter Willey upheld the lbw appeal as the ball brushed the back pad in front of off-stump.

Even then, there was no hint of the drama that was to follow.

Lara continued to reel off a number of sweet strokes, none sweeter than a boundary caressed through squareleg off McGrath, prompting expectation that, at last, he would treat Trinidadians to a Test hundred at Queen's Park, where his highest score in eight Tests is 96.

Once fate betrayed Lara six overs later, the rot set in for the West Indies.

Day 3: Aussies tighten noose

The first Test followed its inevitable course towards a predictable Australian victory yesterday, ordained by Sunday afternoon's depressing, if now customary, West Indian late-order disintegration.

The capitulation did not extend to the West Indies' gallant but, by now, frustrated bowlers.

They stuck stoically to the hopeless task once more forced onto them by their inept batsmen, but Australia's lead of 102 and the time still available were ample enough for them to proceed without fuss or bother.

Glenn McGrath wrapped up the pathetic West Indies' first innings without addition with the sixth ball of the day's opening over, knocking out Merv Dillon's off-stump with an inswinger.

It meant the last seven wickets had tumbled for 18 runs, a grim reminder of South Africa where the last eight collapsed for 42 in the first innings of the final Test.

Australia then consolidated with typical efficiency to reach 227 for seven in their second innings when fading light ended the day with 11 overs still available.

It is an overall advantage of 329 with three wickets and two days remaining, an equation of dread for the West Indies.

Opener Michael Slater's skilfully controlled 106, made out of 192 while he was at the wicket, was at the core of Australia's effort.

It was his 12th hundred in his 46th Test, his fifth in the last nine, further embarrassment for conservative selectors who had condemned him to two years in the wilderness for his alleged reckless aggression.

He spent 4-3/4 chanceless hours, making light of a slow pitch of uncertain bounce that was a challenge to his method and his nature. Massively assured in defence, he despatched any ball that offered him the chance to pull, cut or drive square of the off-side.

He stroked 12 fours before, an hour to the end, he became a rare statistic on a West Indian scoreboard, stumped by Ridley Jacobs as he charged down the pitch to Jimmy Adams' tossed up left-arm spin.

Quick as a rabbit between the wickets, Slater and his co-operative partners countered the disciplined length and line of the bowlers with sharp singles and twos. It was a policy that put the fielders under constant pressure but presented the only earlier chance of removing Slater.

Sprinting his 79th run, he was short of his crease when bowler Pedro Collins dropped Sherwin Campbell's low return from mid-off.

The West Indies bowlers prised out wickets at regular intervals on a cloudy day twice interrupted by showers. But they never fell in a cluster - and certainly not in a heap as theirs had done.

There was early encouragement when the two top-order left-handers, Matthew Elliott and Justin Langer, were out before the score had reached 50.

Elliott edged his drive at Courtney Walsh chest high to second slip in the third over and Langer found a finer deflection to a similar stroke to Dillon, delivering from round the wicket as Walsh had done to remove him in the first innings.

Slater and Mark Waugh checked the potential trouble with a measured partnership of 81.

There was the occasional alarm of a close lbw call and a couple of edges that fell short of slips but they were well entrenched when Mark and his twin brother Steve, the new captain, fell in successive overs to lift West Indian spirits once more.

Mark, half-forward to Curtly Ambrose, as he had been to Walsh in the first innings, was again lbw. Six balls later, Steve dabbled uncertainly outside off-stump at one angled across him by the left-armer Collins and touched it into Jacobs' safe gloves for a duck.

Slater and Greg Blewett carefully restored normalcy, Slater resoundingly completing his hundred with two pulls and a lofted off-drive for fours in the first over of a new spell from Walsh.

His celebrations on reaching the landmark were joyfully exuberant, for his memories of a modest tour of the West Indies four years ago were not happy.

In the remaining hour, Adams accounted for Slater and Greg Blewett, another Ridley Jacobs stumping victim for 33, while Ian Healy fell to Ambrose, the 11th lbw decision of the innings.

By then, the match was realistically out of West Indies' grasp.

Day 4: West Indies at all-time low

Australia delivered another shattering blow to the seriously fractured spirit of West Indies cricket yesterday, brushing aside their feeble batting for a humbling 51 to complete victory by 312 runs in the first Test.

It was the latest of the several stains that have lately besmirched the West Indies' proud record.

Their lowest total in 71 years of Test cricket, two below the 53 against Pakistan in Karachi in 1986, led to the sixth successive defeat for a team psychologically shattered by the 5-0 drubbing in South Africa in the series that ended six weeks ago and now in danger of complete disintegration.

On the same famous Queen's Park Oval where they had routed England for 46 for a famous victory five years ago, the West Indies managed to hold out for only the same 19.1 meagre overs their opponents did then.

The Australians didn't even have to bother to summon their two dangerous leg-spinners, Shane Warne and Stuart MacGill. The probing pace of Glenn McGrath and Jason Gillespie operated through the innings, needing only 11.4 overs to complete their job once opener Sherwin Campbell edged Gillespie for a low catch to Mark Waugh at second slip.

The frailty of the West Indies batting, and heart, had been evident in South Africa and again in their first innings collapse of the last seven wickets for 18 in 12.1 overs.

The fact is that they are now utterly cowed by the prospect of confronting teams as mentally and technically strong as Australia and South Africa.

Captain Brian Lara, manager Clive Lloyd and coach Malcolm Marshall, all berated by the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) for their ``lack of leadership'' that contributed to the South African debacle, yet still retained in their posts, faced the Press afterwards.

All insisted that there was still hope of a revival in the remaining three Tests but the assertion had a hollow ring to it. Their drawn expressions and lifeless eyes told a different, truer, story.

The second Test at Sabina Park is only five days away and, short of another abandonment to follow last year's Test against England, it is impossible to imagine anything but another heavy beating.

Surely there cannot be many more before Lara, Lloyd and Marshall feel compelled to hand over the poisoned chalice to someone else.

Australia were already virtually assured of victory when play began. They were 227 for seven at the start and redundantly stretched their lead to 362 before they were all out for 261 to the second new ball, half-hour into the day. Even in that time, as the tail-enders again played without bother, there was a hint that the fight had gone out of the West Indies.

It took McGrath and Gillespie half-way through the eighth over before they could initiate the rout, but once it was on it was only interrupted by two short breaks for rain.

Had it not been for four byes from a McGrath bouncer that sailed over wicket-keeper Ian Healy's head and two sets of overthrows by Greg Blewett that reached the boundary, the West Indies would not have passed England's low of 1994.

Only left-handed wicket-keeper Ridley Jacobs, 19, passed double-figures and he was responsible for the suicidal run-out of Merv Dillon near the end.

The two fast bowlers matched each other wicket for wicket through the innings.

Gillespie started the rout by having Campbell taken by Mark Waugh at second slip and McGrath followed up with a perfectly directed bouncer that Dave Joseph could only fend off his chest to first slip.

Lara pulled his first ball from McGrath with an imperious confidence that brought a cheer of release from the few hundred spectators scattered around the ground.

Even then, the scent of collapse was in the air. Lara's stroke took him down to the opposite end where, lunging forward, he edged the first ball of Gillespie's next over into Mark Waugh's safe clutches at second slip.

His departure sent his team-mates rushing to panic stations. It did in the first innings and did again now. Soon 11 for three became 16 for four and 16 for five and the prospect of Test cricket's lowest total - New Zealand's 26 against England in Auckland in 1955 - loomed.

Jimmy Adams, a batsman who averaged in the 70s only four years ago, was lbw to McGrath on the back foot and, at the same score, the new, uncertain opener Suruj Ragoonath fell by the same route, entangled as he attempted to play Gillespie to leg.

Rain brought some temporary relief for the West Indies, and thanks to the extras, the overthrows and a couple of boundaries by the pugnacious Jacobs, a straight drive off Gillespie and a hook of McGrath, the total mounted to 31 on resumption.

The breakdown resumed when Roland Holder, hindered by a sprained ankle, provided Mark Waugh with his third slip catch, off McGrath, who broke the sequence of wickets by claiming Curtly Ambrose and Jacobs with identical lbw decisions, of which there were 15 in the match.

The ridiculous run-out of Dillon typified the continuing muddled thinking of the West Indies cricketers. Jacobs pushed the first ball of an over from Gillespie into the off-side and called Dillon through for an impossible single which, if by some fluke it had been completed, would have exposed his No. 9 partner to the strike. As it was, Dillon was well out when Blewett's underarm return broke the stumps.

By now, the only noise around the usually boisterous ground was coming from the few dozen young Australians, waving their flags, singing their songs and consuming increasing quantities of Trinidad's favourite liquid.

For West Indians, even the finest rum in the land had a bitter taste.

The defeat was completed when fast bowler Pedro Collins swung wildly at the first ball of Gillespie's tenth over and had his off-stump plucked from behind them.

It was their second massive defeat in successive Tests, following the 351-run drubbing in the fifth match of the series in South Africa. Both margins do not truly reflect the difference in talent or experience between the teams, only the different in spirit and confidence. But that is no consolation.