Windies level series as Chanderpaul and Hooper hit tons

Not the sort of omen to strike too much confidence into a side battered from without and within with their captain Brian Lara accused of being the worst West Indies captain in''living memory''. Well, as those who fronted that comment are not much older than the Trinidad left-hander, it is fair to say their memories of Sir Frank Worrell, Sir Garfield Sobers, Clive Lloyd and even Rohan Kanhai, must be pretty shaky.

And at 46 for three, the portents that new graves were about to be dug barely 300 metres from centre pitch were growing as rapidly as the wickets were falling yesterday in this second Standard Bank Series match.

Victory? Well, the Windies management and their army of fans which had shrunk by half as many had departed for home the day before, lived in hope. When victory came by 43 runs late in the afternoon it was before the sun dipped into the watery expanse of the Indian Ocean; South Africa were found wanting and not up to the challenge of scoring the 293 for victory.

This was after Shivnarine Chanderpaul rewrote a personal chapter in his record book and Carl Hooper helped add a record all-wicket partnership of 223. Glory for the Windies, torture for South Africa.

Yet at one stage of their innings, about the only flame flickering in hope was that carried by Chanderpaul. He had 36 of those 46 when Lara went for three: battling for 26 balls he did what he has done so often on this tour, played the impossible stroke and got out; Jonty Rhodes doing his smart work to take a pretty straightforward catch.

In rolls Carl Hooper, chewing gum and ``wadda ya know, Shivi, think we can teach these Safs a lesson or two ... ?''

And did they what ... Setting up an all-time Windies wicket record partnership which sealed a victory that was as impressive as any the tourists have had in their limited-overs tussles with South Africa. It was the big story behind this victory by 43 runs, yet a look at the freakish scorecard tells it all: centuries of workmanship quality by Chanderpaul and Hooper, and extras reaching double figures, are the bare facts among a lot of failures in that total of 292 for nine at run rate of 5.84.

For South Africa it was always going to be a hard score match let alone beat and a solid presentation of strike rotation and run-scoring were needed by the top four.

For those who remember the drubbing South Africa received on that historic tour of the islands in 1992 there was a certain, fatalistic similarity. Not that, Shaun Pollock apart, the bowling was all that great yesterday. They were too loose and too short; giving away an extra 13 balls in wides and no balls which was just part of their waywardness.

Including himself Hansie Cronje, after winning the toss and giving West Indies first use of the conditions, used seven bowlers. He no doubt gambled on further Windies top-order batting misdemeanors to capitalise on the conditions; it was the first major failure by the South Africans on the tour. South Africa made three changes to the side which squeaked home off the last ball in Friday night's rain-affected game: Mike Rindel for Herschelle Gibbs, Nicky Boje for Pat Symcox and Henry Williams for Steve Elworthy; all part of the experiment of the team's planned rolling team rotation system.

In some ways it was a dismal failure. So as the Windies cashed in ``big time'' South Africa were not up to it; still hung-over it seems from the 5-0 Test whitewash and perhaps too cocky about a possible 7-0 drubbing of the tourists.

Just as luck had to change at some stage and reward for hard labour in the nets, so did an innings spiced with a flair and sanguine character not seen since the third Test at Kingsmead.

The luck came for Chanderpaul when he was caught by the medium-paced debutant Williams off a Pollock no-ball: an infringement which was the most culpable bowling act of the day. That Pollock still managed to achieve a six-wicket haul was a remarkable act of line and length on a near perfect batting pitch which yielded little for the others. Hooper was missed when 17, a caught and bowled chance which Lance Klusener just failed to gather.

Yet a glance at the anemic top-order must had given the Windies coach, Malcolm Marshall, another bout of billory; Philo Wallace went first ball, caught by Boje and five runs as well as nine balls later (still in the same over) Nixon McLean departed, a top-edge to Rindel. Pollock two for five in a nine-ball first over. Shades of that first over rout of Pakistan's top-order loomed.

Lara looking miserable, out of touch, out of sorts and with more than run-scoring on his mind, came and went and the soup into which the Windies had yet again plunged was as near green and as catastrophic as you could find. Slowly Chanderpaul and Hooper extracted the Windies feet from the gluttonous mess, established their batting credentials and gave the South African bowlers a right working over they are going to remember.

It is a pity that records need to get in the way of such batting artistry. Yet in terms of LOI performances it ranks among the Windies greatest; the 223 surpassed the 221 established by Gordon Greenidge and Vivian Richards against India in Jamshedpur in 1983/84 and on the way they waved goodbye to the 149 by Kanhai and Lloyd in the 1975 World Cup (limited-overs version) final at Lord's.

Amid all this carnage, watched in awe by a growing band of spectators which in the end went beyond the 14 000 mark, South Africa's bowlers were effectively put to the sword. Hooper was the first to depart: the first ball of the 47th over for 108 off 119 balls, eight fours and three sixes with the score at 282, caught by Pollock off Boje when the batsman went for the big one. Keith Arthurton came and went without scoring three balls later from a nifty bit of run out work by Jonty Rhodes.

Then Chanderpaul departed the next over with the score at 275 for as perfect a limited-overs innings you are likely to see; 150 off 136 balls and with 20 fours. No slogging here; carefully crafted run-making of the highest order and the South Africans knew it. And even then Pollock bowled him off his pads.

We had some more Rhodes fielding magic with Ridley Jacobs foolishly gambling with his fate and Pollock bowling with the sort of elan to expect from a high class performer.

Still, it required a few words from Cronje to express what most knew. ``They batted us out of the game,'' was the simple summing up.

Gary Kirsten departed for three, Mike Rindel for two and Daryll Cullinan for six as South Africa, at 18 for three were up against it. Pressure tactics were slowly applied and with runs to play with, Lara looked more in command, his attention not so divided to lose the plot of this one as he did on Friday night.

There was some resistance from Jacques Kallis whose half-century propped up the middle, but just as the innings gathered momentum the partnerships needed to sustain the challenge fell apart until a late rally by Mark Boucher and Klusener. A partnership of 64 at a fraction under six an over for the eighth wicket was back to the wall stuff, but Boucher's departure and Boje's run out dissolved the bottom order faster than a Corenza C tablet in water. The batting sniffles which had been apparent most of the afternoon broke into a full-blown cold. It could have been as a result of the chill caught at the Wanderers, but a lot of hard work has to be done by South Africa if they are to sort out their LOI problems in Kingsmead on Wednesday.