CricInfo Home
News Home

NEWS FOCUS
Rsa in Pak
NZ in India
Zim in Aus

Domestic
Other Series

Day 1: Here West Indies go again

Tony Cozier in Kingston

There was another dispiriting sense of deja vu on the first day of the second Test here yesterday.

Steve Waugh's typically efficient, even 100 in his second Test as Australia's captain countered a spirited West Indies' bowling effort, with Courtney Walsh to the fore. Then Waugh's fast bowlers once more dismantled the opposition's fragile top order in the last hour-and-a-half to secure a commanding position.

Waugh's 18th Test hundred could not guarantee the imposing total he was seeking after winning the toss.

Even so, 256 is a mountain to a West Indies team psychologically shaken by its all-out 51 in the first Test and shorn of class and experience by the continuing absence of Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Carl Hooper.

They tottered to 37 for four by the time fading light halted play with 1.5 of the available 16 overs remaining.

They have to depend on the type of innings they haven't had for some time from their beleaguered captain, Brian Lara, to put up some sort of a fight.

Even Jamaicans, to whom Lara is anathema, recognised his role in the effort and the anticipated angry reception to his appearance did not materialise.

Jason Gillespie initiated the slump with an lbw verdict against the inadequate opener Suruj Ragoonath.

Glenn McGrath followed by removing the new No. 3 Lincoln Roberts, sacrificed at an unaccustomed position and out without scoring on debut, the other opener Sherwin Campbell and Dave Joseph.

Ragoonath, who has looked out of place at this level with the bat and in the field, was once more essaying a defensive stroke across the line when umpire Peter Willey upheld the appeal.

Some flash of genius within the West Indies hierarchy decided to promote Roberts to a position he has rarely been sent in by Trinidad and Tobago instead of Dave Joseph who had so capably handled it in Port-of-Spain.

It was as senseless as it was unfair, and he was undone by McGrath's sharp lifter that brushed the glove on the wrist on its way through to first slip. Umpire Steve Bucknor gave the marginal decision against him.

By then, Campbell had offered two sharp chances off cuts to each of the two deep gullies off McGrath.

Attempting to repeat the stroke, he dragged the ball back into his stumps and, at 17 for three, dark images of Monday at the Queen's Park Oval materialised in the bright late afternoon sunshine.

Joseph, pugnacious as he was in his first Test, drove McGrath sweetly for two boundaries. But he was completely foxed by the wily fast bowler's change of pace and, out of position, slapped a catch straight to Greg Blewett at backward point.

Pedro Collins emerged as nightwatchman, as he had done in the first innings in Trinidad, and calmly saw out the closing overs with his captain.

It was to their relief and that of the 8 000 dumbfounded spectators around the stands that Bucknor and Willey told them the light was dull enough they did not have to endure the tension any longer.

It was yet another deflating ending to a day of challenging West Indies cricket in the field.

Had it not been for the Waugh brothers, who added 112 in two hours either side of lunch, it would have been even more uplifting although, had Australia been bowled out sooner, it would have given them more time to take care of the West Indies batsmen.

Steve Waugh's previous innings at Sabina Park was his 200 that was mainly responsible for the victory by which Australia regained the Frank Worrell Trophy five years ago.

Paying due care and attention to the remarkable Walsh and his perennial colleague, Curtly Ambrose, he never let the inexperienced support bowlers settle.

Most of his 11 fours were off the left-arm fast bowler Collins, in his second Test, and the Jamaican off-spinner Nehemiah Perry who was liberal with his bad balls on debut.

Waugh also clouted a six over midwicket off Perry, but Collins eventually gained some satisfaction by removing him, the last of his three wickets in a quick and impressive spell to round off the innings, all neatly taken in the slips off the outside edge by Joseph.

There was one chance to remove Waugh early but Ridley Jacobs fumbled a stumping off Perry when he was 13, allowing him the split-second he needed to get back before the stumps were broken.

The circumstances of Waugh's innings were not dissimilar to those in 1995. He strode in to join his brother at 46 for three this time, as against 79 for three then, with West Indians on and off the field inspired by three wickets by Walsh, Jamaica's most beloved cricketer.

Five years ago, the twins added 231, Mark contributing 126. Now they took the fight to the bowlers and had comfortably, and quickly, raised 112 together when a freak delivery separated them and altered the course of the Australian innings.

Mark stroked the ball with typical elegance for 67 with eight fours and two effortless straight sixes off Perry. He was seemingly certain to reach a 17th Test hundred when Perry hit his off-stump an inch from the base with an out-and-out ground-eater.

Three wickets fell for 19 runs in the half-hour before tea as the West Indies regained the early control they had gained in the first session through Walsh.

Greg Blewett became Walsh's fourth victim, and 408th Test wicket, falling across his crease and lbw. Ian Healy, backing up too far, was run out by Joseph's pick up and return to bowler Perry after a solitary scoring stroke, a hook fine for six.

Steve Waugh ensured that a tea-time 184 for six did not deteriorate into anything less adequate than the eventual total, adding 48 off 48 balls with Shane Warne before Collins, distinctly sharp from round the wicket, removed Warne, Stuart MacGill and, finally, Waugh himself.

In between, Ambrose, never at full throttle but never less than accurate, gained his first wicket, bowling Gillespie off-stump, but Australia's demise was only a prelude to another limp West Indian batting performance.

And Warne and MacGill are yet to put the prediction that the pitch will aid their spin to test.

Day 2: Lara at last!

Tony Cozier in Kingston

Captain backed by Adams in record stand

In six magical, unforgettable hours in the Sabina Park sunshine yesterday, Brian Lara at last dispelled the despondency that has hung like a pall over himself and West Indies cricket for too long.

When he strode out to resume his overnight innings on the second day of the second Test, the situation was familiarly brave. His team was tottering at 37 for four, in reply to Australia's 256 and there was nothing to hint of any change to the collapses that have become standard in recent times.

When he left the ground amidst the lengthening shadows, unbeaten 212, he had completely transformed the mood of the 8,000 or so West Indians in the stands and the Press box and the millions more outside Sabina's confines who had come to despair for the game that remains their passionate obsession.

With unwavering and essential support from fellow left hander Jimmy Adams on the ground that has been his cricketing home since he was a boy, Lara led a remarkable transformation of the match and, indeed the series.

Adams contributed a steadfast 88 to an unbroken partnership of 321, a new fifth wicket Test record for the West Indies, and the West Indies 379 for four, already had a lead of 121 .It is a position from which they can dictate terms over the last three days in the quest to draw level after their crushing defeat in the first Test.

It was a situation unthinkable a mere 24 hours earlier. The effort restored ebbing faith in the West Indian capacity to fight, so proudly established by the hosts of great players of the past.

Lara's epic began in the continuing depths of despair, in the first Test at Queen's Park Oval only six days earlier, his already controversial reputation had been compromised by his own board that has put him on probation as captain following the recent calamitous tour of South Africa and he had been widely and bitterly criticised throughout the region , not least in Jamaica.

It was a performance that revealed a steely foundation to Lara's carefree persona. Nothing characterised the revival more than the fact that the West Indies did not lose a single wicket throughout the day's 90 overs, scoring 340.

In their previous 14 Tests , the average length of their innings was 74 overs , their average total 228. Their only setback was a blow to the box from Jason Gillespie that obliged the dogged night watchman Pedro Collins to retire after he had comfortably kept Lara company for the first 40 minutes during which he twice on-drove fast bowler Gillespie to the boundary.

The only stroke Lara did not play on a slow, true pitch in his dazzling display was the reverse sweep.

He was especially severe on Australia's two leg spinners, Shane Warne and Stuart Mac Gill, who conceded 156 runs from their combined 41 overs.

The first of the three sixes , while he was in the 40s, landed among the celebrating spectators at long on off his old adversary , Warne.

His other two were in the same direction off successive balls from Mac Gill when he was past 100 and heading towards his second.

He also stroked 29 fours in every direction, 134 of his runs gathered in boundaries.

The best, and most courageous, was his 25th , a searing cover drive off fast bowler Glen Mc Grath, the ball after his old foe had temporarily floored him with a bouncer to the side flap of his helmet.

It was Lara's 11th 100 in his 61st Test , the third time he has passed 200 following his Test record 375 against England in 1994 and his masterly 277 against Australia in Sydney a year earlier.

It was his first 100 since his 115 against Sri Lanka in St Vincent in June, 1997, 14 Tests earlier. None has been more critical to him or his team. None has been more measured or clinically compiled.

He spent 140 balls over his first 50. His second took him only 62. Everything even fractionally short was dispatched with a certain pull or a flashing cut. Everything over pitched was driven with a certain, flourishing blade.

Each of his landmarks triggered an invasion of the ground by dozens of spectators-many of them incongruous Australians from the Mound Stand-that sent him scampering for the sanctuary of the boundary's edge in front of the George Headley Stand the first time, all the way into the dressing room the second.

One of those who came out to acclaim him on the first occasion was Courtney Walsh, his predecessor as captain, who embraced him in a warm bear hug.

His hundred was climaxed by high drama. Sprinting through for the critical run as he pushed Gillespie to square-leg, it took a lengthy examination of the TV replay by third umpire Thomas Wilson, requested by umpire Steve Bucknor, to judge that he had just made his ground before Justin Langer's throw uprooted the off-stump at the bowler's end.

The Australians missed two sharp chances to remove both Lara and Adams immediately after lunch.

Adams was 13 when Langer, diving to his left at short leg failed to grasp off glove from Warne. In the next over at the opposite end, Lara's edge off Glenn McGrath flew fast and wide to Mark Waugh's left at second slip but one of the game's safest catchers couldn't hold on. Lara was then 44 and it was already an expensive miss at tea.

Lara afterwards paid tribute to the support he had got from Collins and Adams.

It was a timely return to his best for Adams, out of the team since he was dropped following last year's third Test against England and shakily returning to the team in Port of- Spain after his much-discussed accident aboard the flight from London that torpedoed his South African tour.

Satisfied to be carried along in Lara's wake, he was, nevertheless, positive throughout his 225 balls, especially in the running between the wickets with his old partner and good friend. By the end of the day, he was stroking cover-drives like the Adams who once boasted a Test average in the 70s and even hooking and pulling for a couple of his eight boundaries.

It was a partnership that took the previously cock-a-hoop Australians by surprise.

They now know they are in a fight-and we have not been able to say that about the West Indies team for a long time.

Day 3: Shift in the wind

Tony Cozier in Kingston

A week ago they were dejected, derided as no-hopers and dismissed as unworthy of challenging the might of confident Australia.

This morning the West Indies cricket team is on the verge of an unbelievable - and unbelievably emphatic - victory in the second Test over the same team that cruelly brushed them aside for their lowest total in their long and proud history and thrashed them by 312 runs in the first Test.

Unpredictable

Cricket is such a fascinating and unpredictable endeavour that such remarkable transformations in fortunes are not unheard of.

England's recovery from an all-out 46 at the Queen's Park Oval five years ago to record their first victory over the West Indies at Kensington Oval in 59 years two weeks later is the most recent instance.

It was used by their psychological consultant Dr Rudi Webster, after the first Test debacle, to emphasise to this team that all was not lost. But, cock-eyed optimist that he undoubtedly is, even Dr Webster could not have foreseen such a swift and complete turnaround.

It was inspired on the second day by captain Brian Lara's devastating batting that not only lifted the spirits of his own team and its wavering supporters but shattered the confidence of the cock-sure Australians.

Resilience

They simply could not believe that a team so psychologically broken after six successive Test defeats, with its captain under seemingly unbearable pressure from his public and his board, and with six fledgling players with a combined 10 Test matches between them, could find the resilience to rise from the dead.

By the time Lara was finished with his clinical annihilation of their bowling on Sunday, the Australians were beaten. Shell-shocked, they couldn't recover to put up the necessary fight.

Even though Lara's dazzling 213 came to a quick and anti-climactic end in the day's second over, the West Indies could not be deflected from their goal, maintaining their application and discipline even after two potentially expensive missed catches.

Lara's demise, caught at the wicket off his fourth ball off his old adversary Glenn McGrath after adding a single to his overnight score, led to a decline in which the last six wickets fell for 56.

Their first innings 431, completed the first ball after lunch, secured them an imposing lead of 175 and, by close, they had reduced Australia to 157 for eight, 18 in arrears with only nine, ten and jack remaining.

Energised by the captain's onslaught of the previous day, and his monumental fifth-wicket partnership of 322 with the solid, level-headed Jimmy Adams, the West Indies were unrecognisable from the disorganised and disunited bunch that had been so soundly thrashed in all five Tests in the preceding series in South Africa and in the first Test.

Undermining

Courtney Walsh, as effective in his 37th year and 108th Test as he was in his 21st year and first Test, began the Australian slide in the second over by inducing an inside-edge into his stumps from Michael Slater's rash cut shot.

After that, Walsh's fellow Jamaican, the off-spinner Nehemiah Perry, administered the undermining strikes, finishing with four wickets for 61.

Aged 30 and on debut on the ground where he also plays his club cricket for Kingston, the lanky Perry has added variety to an attack that has so often suffered for lack of it.

He foxed left-handed opener Matthew Elliot with a straight ball 25 minutes to tea to earn an Ibw verdict as the batsman padded up.

As it was, Elliott was lucky to have escaped his third successive ``duck'', dropped at second slip by Dave Joseph in Curtly Ambrose's opening over.

Ten minutes after tea, Perry produced a bouncing off-break that Justin Langer, another left-hander, edged to wicket-keeper Ridley Jacobs who then held a breathtaking catch to account for captain Steve Waugh.

Waugh had just driven successive fours off Perry when, sweeping at a poor delivery down the leg-side, he got an edge on to Jacobs' leg.

The wicket-keeper had the reflexes and presence of mind to tumble over and snare the ball with his left glove so close to turf that umpires Peter Willey and Steve Bucknor had to refer to third umpire Thomas Wilson for adjudication off the television replay.

When the light flashed to signal Waugh's demise, he walked down the pitch to speak sternly with Willey before departing.

It was a key dismissal and left his team with little hope.

He was soon followed by his two experienced lieutenants, brother Mark and wicket-keeper Ian Healy.

Mark, dropped second ball low down at slip by Lara off Perry, was clinically set up by Ambrose who set two men back deep behind square-leg and fed him bouncers. Never comfortable against the tactic, Mark hooked into Walsh's lap at long-leg, a disappointingly soft dismissal for such a class player.

Healy ran himself out for the second time in the match, trying for a second on a fumble in the field and ending well short of his ground on Pedro Collins' fast return to Jacobs.

Walsh returned to remove Shane Warne for 23 to a slip catch and the scoresheet on the edge of the Kingston Club pavilion that has charted his every wicket moved over to 410.

Greg Blewett was left as the only recognised batsman and, off the second ball of the day's final over, presented Perry with his fourth wicket, an edge to Lara at slip, an appropriate end for the bowler and the team.

Earlier, McGrath added Lara and Adams, caught in the gully for 94, to his three on the first afternoon, his third successive five-wicket return in the series following another compelling spell of nine consecutive overs from the George Headley Stand end.

The stand between the left-handers, already a new West Indies fifth-wicket record, was worth 322 on Lara's exit.

Adams fell six short of a deserved hundred, and their dismissals altered confident West Indian expectations of an overwhelming first innings lead as leg-spinners Shane Warne and Stuart MacGill got among the lower order.

Warne collected his first wicket of the series after 41 overs when Jacobs, yet another left-hander, rifled a catch to mid-on. MacGill despatched Collins and Ambrose with sharp legbreaks immediately before lunch and Walsh first ball afterwards for his 34th Test duck.

A reduced Monday morning crowd was still drifting into Sabina Park when Lara trudged disconsolately back to the players' pavilion and not everyone was seated when Adams followed him 40 minutes later.

There was a muted and sympathetic reception for both, a stark contrast to the wild scenes of the previous afternoon when hundreds of jubilant spectators invaded the field to mob Lara after his 100th and his 200th run.

But the mood perked up as the afternoon wore on.

Day 3 Report more

WI win in sight - Poised for victory in 7 Test

End all the talk of woeful Windies for now.

The West Indies are poised to end a depressing run of six consecutive Test defeats which had put them two away from the world record.

Debutant off-spinner Nehemiah Perry seized four Australian second innings wickets yesterday to put the Caribbean boys on the brink of an amazing victory at Sabina Park.

Australia, 175 behind on first innings in the second Test at Sabina Park, slumped to 157 for eight on a wearing pitch at the close on the third day.

Perry's first three strikes accounted for Matthew Elliott (16), Justin Langer (24) and captain Steve Waugh (9), whose dismissal had to be decided by the third umpire after watching the television replay of a superb catch by wicketkeeper Ridley Jacobs low down on the leg-side.

Jamaican slow bowler Perry also sent back Greg Blewett (30) in the last over of the day, giving him four for 61.

Courtney Walsh made the initial breakthrough by bowling Michael Slater (0) and later added the wicket of Shane Warne, (23) while Curtly Ambrose sustained the pressure by dispatching Mark Waugh (21).

West Indies, who lost the opening match of the series in Port-of-Spain by 312 runs and were beaten in all five Tests in South Africa recently, owed their first innings lead to skipper Brian Lara's outstanding 213.

Lara was out after adding only one to his overnight 212 but by then he had ensured his team of a significant advantage after a stand of 322 with Jimmy Adams.

Lara and Adams (94) broke the West Indian fifth-wicket Test record against all teams. The importance of their partnership was underlined when the last six wickets tumbled for 54 after they resumed at the overnight 377 for four.

After play ended, the 30-year-old Perry praised Lara for ``some wonderful advice''.

``Brian kept on saying 'you are doing well, keep your line, keep your concentration and keep bubbling'.

``The spirits were so high in the middle as the wickets began to fall. It was really electrifying,'' Perry said.

He felt it was to his advantage that he was playing his first Test on home soil and his own club pitch.

``I know how this pitch plays, how it turns, how it bounces and I just had to put some pressure on the batsmen,'' added Perry, who is known to his friends as Johnny P.

Day 4: West Indies wrap up victory

The West Indies took three-quarters of an hour to complete victory over Australia by 10 wickets in the second Test at Sabina Park yesterday.

The team ended a depressing sequence of six defeats and levelled the series with two matches remaining.

Courtney Walsh, their longest-serving player in his 108th Test, took his overall tally of Test wickets to 410 when No. 9 Jason Gillespie gloved a leg-side catch to wicket-keeper Ridley Jacobs.

Last man Glenn McGrath boosted his series average to 59 with an edge through slips off Walsh and a classical off-drive off Nehemiah Perry, and Stuart MacGill pulled Walsh, all for fours, in a last-wicket stand of 18 that just avoided an innings' defeat.

That the win was achieved with a team lacking in experience simply underscored its enormity.