By Geoffrey Dean in Port Elizabeth
A DAY of good and bad fast bowling, injudicious top-order batting and audacious tailend counter-attack ended with honours just about even in the sort of conditions over which seamers drool in the second Test here.
Not for the first time, meanwhile, Pat Symcox, a notable retriever of lost causes, revived South Africa after coming to the wicket at 142 for seven.
Despite the funereal over-rate (63 in nearly five hours), it was Test cricket at its most compelling, even if the pitch was far from ideal. Moist and thickly-grassed, it offered generous movement and bounce under an everpresent blanket of cloud. Bad light after tea predictably curtailed proceedings.
West Indies will know they should have dismissed South Africa for well under 200. Neither Mervyn Dillon, called into the side after a final pitch inspection, nor Nixon McLean exploited the conditions as they might, and Courtney Walsh bowled too short in his opening spell.
The non-appearance of Curtly Ambrose, who had caused no end of problems, after tea due to a slight groin strain greatly facilitated Symcox and Allan Donald's unbroken ninth-wicket stand of 48 in 12 overs.
Walsh bowled much better after changing ends to have the wind behind him. Having removed Herschelle Gibbs somewhat fortuitously, bowling him off his body, he dispatched Gary Kirsten with a brutish lifter, Ridley Jacobs holding a fine one-handed catch. That took Walsh past Ian Botham (383 victims) into third place in the Test wickets league table.
Jonty Rhodes, one of a triumvirate to be caught at second slip, was fifth out at 89, whereupon Shaun Pollock batted with skill and aggression, clouting 28 in 25 balls. But when Ambrose tried his luck from round the wicket, Pollock fell for the change of angle, wafting at a wide one to be caught at third slip.
Day 2: Another Lara failure as West Indies collapse
By Geoffrey Dean in Port Elizabeth
SOUTH AFRICA have West Indies on the run in the second Test. To win, the visitors will almost certainly have to score in excess of 300 - a feat that looks beyond an unconvincing batting line-up.
Yesterday 17 wickets fell, but for the second successive day just over 4,000 spectators were present. Test attendances are in decline here.
West Indies batted inappropriately on a surface demanding more resolution and graft. They needed someone to book in for bed and breakfast, but the top order seemed interested only in a snack. The tail threw the bat in desperation and Nixon McLean's bizarre 12-ball 31, which included four sixes, got them much closer to South Africa than appeared likely.
To a large degree West Indies' dismissal in just 37.3 overs was a tribute to their opponents' fuller length; in part it was the pitch, and partly it was a state of mind.
Hansie Cronje's use of the heavy roller before South Africa batted again seemed to draw much of the spite from the pitch. Tentative batting was the chief cause for the loss of four quick wickets and after Cronje had been run out for the second time in the match, Jonty Rhodes and Shaun Pollock endured few alarms as they constructed the biggest stand of the match, an un- broken 90 in 20 overs.
Pollock had again bowled beautifully to expand his series bag to 14 victims. Clayton Lambert and Floyd Reifer got out to him with ill-chosen drives, but his ideal length brought the errors. Chanderpaul's determination to play everything off the back foot led to his downfall.
Brian Lara, meanwhile, can do nothing right with the bat. He sweated for 23 balls over four before Allan Donald confronted him with the most unplayable of lifters, delivered at express pace. It was the ball of the day, consummated by a notable catch at first slip. Donald's best Test score, 34, made it a pleasurable morning for him.
David Terbrugge's spell deserves commendation. South Africa's answer to Angus Fraser was soon hitting the proverbial sixpence, or rather the seam, as he nipped deliveries back through the casual defences of Stuart Williams and Carl Hooper. An absolute pearler accounted for Ridley Jacobs, pitching middle stump and clipping off.
Day 3: Lara's crew all at sea
By Geoffrey Dean in Port Elizabeth
AS West Indies sank towards an ignominious three-day defeat, the irrepressible brass band that never misses a day's Test cricket at St George's Park fittingly, if mischievously, belted out the theme tune from the movie, Titanic.
Rolled over for 141, the West Indies' combined batting time over both innings was a mere six hours, little more than the period the stricken liner took to go down after its infamous collision.
West Indies, whose batting was truly lamentable yesterday, lost by 178 runs to fall 2-0 behind with three Tests to play. Set an improbable 320 on a sporting pitch which had nevertheless flattened out somewhat from the first two days, they played like men no longer believing in the cause. Wickets were either thrown away - as in two ridiculous run-outs - or gifted. Clayton Lambert fell to a terrible shot. Later, loose drives from Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Floyd Reifer proved fatal as two excellent slip catches were held.
Only after West Indies had collapsed to 77 for seven yesterday did they manage their first fifty partnership of the match. And that was in a lost cause as Brian Lara clicked into one-day mode, carting Allan Donald for three fours in an over and hooking him for six in the next. But in trying to repeat the stroke next ball, he miscued to mid-on.
Lara, wanting to screen himself from the new ball, had come in at number five with Williams dropping down to eight because of an upset stomach. For a while, the rejigged order worked, but from 40 for one, the last nine wickets capitulated in 25 overs.
Donald, fired up after Curtly Ambrose had hit him on the helmet while batting, bowled with withering pace on a grassy, bouncy surface. Several times he bounced Ambrose mercilessly, and it was from another well-directed throat ball that the Antiguan was last out, fending to third slip.