CAPE TOWN - The going gets rougher by the day for the ill-starred West Indies in South Africa.
Until now, the misery was heaped mainly on the batsmen. Now it was the bowlers' turn as Daryll Cullinan and Jacques Kallis made good their captain Hansie Cronje's promise of no compromies to their bowed and beaten opponents on the opening day of the fourth Test yesterday.
After Cronje won the toss, the pair made light of the loss of Gary Kirsten to the first ball of the match that gave Curtly Ambrose his 350th Test wicket and the most of pluperfect batting conditions and a threadbare attack to gather untroubled hundreds in a partnership without flaw and without chance.
They were the first in the series on either side and their stand, already worth 208 with the prospect of many more to come, led South Africa to an imposing 282 for two off the day's 90 overs.
Their home-town crowd packed into beautiful Newlands to its 22 000 capacity on a day of crystal clear sunshine that accentuated the dramatic backdrop of Table Mountain and delighted in the run feast.
They already know that the West Indies will again have their own mountain to climb to stave off their fourth defeat in the series.
At close, the free-stroking Cullinan was unbeaten 122 after four hours, five minutes, his sixth Test century, punctuated with 18 resounding boundaries in all directions off 190 balls.
The more deliberate Kallis was 102, reaching three figures after six hours for the third time in Tests in the final over, limiting himself to eight fours.
He gave a head start of nearly two hours and 28 runs to Cullinan who joined him after the other opener, Herschelle Gibbs, was neatly caught by Philo Wallace at forward short-leg off Merv Dillon for 42 on the stroke of lunch.
It was a clever piece of strategy effectively carried out by the bowler.
Brian Lara instructed Dillon to switch to round the wicket and bowl in at Gibbs' legs where he has been shown to be vulnerable. He set short-legs backward and forward and the trap was sprung two balls later.
With South Africa 74 for two, there was cause for West Indies optimism at the first interval. It soon evaporated.
The pitch, light beige in colour, slow in pace and even in bounce, offered the bowlers nothing but heartache and, in the absence through injury of the stalwart Courtney Walsh and Franklyn Rose, the lack of quality and experience among the support fast bowlers for Ambrose was starkly exposed by the rampant South Africans.
Ambrose had gone 21 overs without a wicket in the third Test. Now his first ball ended the drought as the left-handed Kirsten gloved a leg-side deflection to wicket-keeper Ridley Jacobs.
For a piece of additional trivia, it was the 66th time he had dismissed a batsman for 0 in Tests, drawing level with India's Kapil Dev on that rarely recognised statistic.
In spite of the sore knee he has carried through the tour, the tall Antiguan was the only bowler capable of the control and patience demanded by the conditions. All the others were unable to land the ball in roughly the same spot for more than six balls.
Nixon McLean, Dillon and the hastily summoned Ottis Gibson were inclined to dig in too many short balls that, on such a surface, amounted to long hops that were usually pulled and cut to the ropes unless they found the acrobatic Shivnarine Chanderpaul in the way at cover point where he is quickly matching the South African run-savers,
Day 2: Hooper hoists WI hopes
For four hours yesterday the West Indies were identifiable as a genuine, competitive Test team, a rare occurrence on their ill-starred tour of South Africa.
It took Allan Donald five overs to transform them back into their more familiar guise and commit them to another desperate fight for survival after two days of the fourth Test.
Their bowlers, supported by slick ground fielding, responded to the hamstring strain that ended Curtly Ambrose's day in the second over after lunch with the purpose and discipline they have rarely shown all series.
With everyone contributing, they restricted South Africa to the addition of 124 runs off 56.5 overs for the return of six wickets, converting their opponent's daunting overnight 282 for two to 406 for eight before a bizarre declaration the ball before tea.
That effectively put the match out of their reach but it should have been motivation enough to prompt their unreliable batting to finally show its worth on an ideal batting surface on another fine day.
The optimism was rapidly dispelled as Donald, fast and compelling, removed makeshift opener Junior Murray with his fifth ball, his hefty partner Philo Wallace in his fourth over and the altogether more significant captain Brian Lara in his fifth.
Immediately, Donald left the field to seek treatment, like Ambrose, on a damaged hamstring, but the damage he had already completed on the visitors was massively devastating. The tenacious South Africans are not inclined to relax on their laurels and, in Donald's absence, the medium-pacer David Terbrugge snared Shivnarine Chanderpaul as well to a carefully laid plan to leave the West Indies in ruins at 34 for four.
Over the final 50 minutes, Carl Hooper, with the first legitimate Hooper innings of the series, and the level-headed teenager Daren Ganga denied the South Africans any further inroads, carrying the score to 89 for four.
That is still 117 away from what seemed a straightforward follow-on goal of 206 but now looms as a distant target at the end of a treacherous journey.
Donald's speed once more exposed the main batting problem that has dogged the West Indies since the break-up of the great opening partnership of Gordon Greenidge and Desmond Haynes.
The sacrifice of Murray, a wicketkeeper with no experience in the position, was a hair-brained decision when it was taken and was no more justifiable for his pair of 29s at Durban. His fifth ball cut back to him and found the inside edge of an angled bat for wicketkeeper Mark Boucher to claim a fine, -and this time fair-catch. The heavy-hitting but leaden-footed Wallace never looked comfortable and, after one spanking square-cut boundary, he followed his partner back to the pavilion, offering an indeterminate defensive prod to one that found the outside edge on its way to first slip.
But they were small fish.
Lara was the catch that set Donald and his teammates off on a Zulu war dance that could have done nothing for his suspect hamstring. Jumping back to fend the pacer's fifth ball off his chest, Lara dislodged the leg bail as his right heel pressed against the leg-stump.
It was a rare method of dismissal but not unknown for Lara who goes so far back in defence.
By then, Chanderpaul had been in 35 minutes for two and was being pressured by Hansie Cronje's astute field placing that included the posting of a short extra-cover. The South African camp had done its homework for Chanderpaul has driven catches there more than once in Tests.
He had eked out 6 from 58 balls in just under an hour and a half when he was snared in the trap again, driving straight to Jonty Rhodes in the position.
Already, there had been confusion in the calling between him and Hooper. The vice-captain's first run would not have been a run at all had Cronje's throw not missed the stumps with him well away from home.
Soon, as is the wont, his absent-mindedness almost cost him his wicket again. Backing up on Ganga's stroke to extra-cover, he made his ground a split second before Herschelle Gibbs's alert pick up and throw crashed into the stumps for a direct hit.
Such things do not faze Hooper, one way or the other, and he proceeded to bat with the enchanting fluency that makes him such a favourite with so many. By stumps, he had stroked seven fours in the 53 he had made off 65 balls.
Ganga, technically and temperamentally sound, remained with him to close with 16. But three long, hard days lie ahead ...
Throughout the first two sessions, the West Indies had shown rare heart in preventing what threatened to be a continuing run glut. Everyone played his part. The support bowlers were consistently fuller in length and more direct in line than at any previous time, even if Nixon McLean was still inclined to overdo the bouncer, and the fielders, with Chanderpaul once more, Wallace and Hooper outstanding on the ground, gave little away.
Ottis Gibson began the fightback an hour and 10 minutes into play by ending the third wicket partnership between the century-makers, Jacques Kallis and Daryll Cullinan, that had started after lunch on the previous day and put South Africa in a virtually impregnable position.
The stand was worth 235 when Gibson found a perfectly pitched, late outswinger that turned Kallis round and found his outside edge on its way through to Ridley Jacobs.
Kallis's flawless 110 was a marathon of seven hours 10 minutes that was the foil to Cullinan's first day aggression.
Cronje lasted only seven balls before McLean induced an outside edge from a loose cut stroke but Cullinan then put on 64 with the busy-bee Rhodes, proceeding to the highest of his six Test hundreds. He was 168 and tiring when McLean finally found an effective bouncer that he fended off his face with his glove for Jacobs to take the lobbed rebound.
In for six and three-quarter hours all told, he could not find his rhythm of the first day and spent three hours adding 46 to 122, adding only two fours to the 18 he had had at the start.
The remainder of the innings was a waste of time for South Africa as only 26 were added off 16.5 overs before the declaration, Dillon dismissing both Shaun Pollock and Donald for a final haul of three wickets.
Soon Donald was back out in his more accustomed role-dispensing misery to opposing batsmen.
Day 3: West Indies ride their luck
CAPE TOWN - Aided by unusual South African generosity in the field, the West Indies scrambled their way out of the newest indignity of a possible follow-on on the third day of the fourth Test yesterday.
But they still have two more days of tough grind ahead if they are to avoid their fourth successive defeat.
Jonty Rhodes dropped Carl Hooper at cover-point off Hansie Cronje in the day's first over when he was 55 and Hooper proceeded to 86 before his latest piece of cricketing nonchalance brought his downfall.
Paul Adams let Ridley Jacobs' skier off David Terbrugge through his lunging grasp at deep mid-on and the batsman advanced from 13 to 29 as a result.
Wicket-keeper Mark Boucher watched Ottis Gibson's catchable outside-edge off Terbrugge fly past to his right, allowing Gibson to move from four to 37.
And substitute Ashwell Prince put down Nixon McLean's steepling deep-field offering at long-off, the least costly of the misses, yielding two more runs, before McLean's demise.
All the escapes were before the West Indies had reached their goal of 207.
Resuming at 89 for four, they were finally bowled out at tea for 212, yet another entry into the ever-growing log book of batting failures.
Without the faulty catching, Cronje would have had the option, and psychological advantage, of sending his dispirited opponents back in.
However, he would have been without his main strike weapon, Allan Donald, who was on the treatment table in the team room with a strained left hamstring. So the captain might have been relieved not to have to make the decision.
A lead of 196 was imposing enough and, even with the early loss of three wickets for no runs in the space of 10 balls, it was extended to 287, with seven wickets intact, by the end.
There is still ample time for South Africa's disciplined bowlers to work their way through the fragile West Indies batting, even on a pitch that remains in ideal condition.
South Africa's aerial errors contrasted sharply with their dazzling work on the ground, where the speed, athleticism and accuracy of Hershcelle Gibbs, Jonty Rhodes and Cronje himself especially saved countless runs and gained the negligent Hooper's wicket.
In combination with their familiar spot-on bowling, they so restrained Hooper and his overnight partner, Daren Ganga, that they added only 19 runs off 13 overs when Ganga was out.
It was the fledgling Trinidadian's 20th birthday but the South Africans were offering no gifts.
He had been confined to a single off 35 balls for the day when Shaun Pollock bamboozled him with the change of pace of a slower ball. He was half-way through his stroke when he made contact and lobbed a catch to forward square-leg.
At least, unlike so many others, he had displayed temperament and technique in his overall stay of an hour and 40 minutes, helping Hooper add 74.
Jacobs arrived with the reasonable intention of changing the tempo. It meant taking risks and he was lucky with Adams' miss and a few streaky edges but, for the hour-and-a-half he was in, he had the South Africans thinking.
Hardly an hour has gone by in this series without a defining moment typifying the gap between the teams, and Cronje's spectacular run-out of Hooper quarter-hour before lunch was another.
Hooper stroked Pollock over extra-cover and, as Cronje chased the ball to within two feet of the ropes, casually turned for a third run.
Now clearly carrying more weight than he should, Hooper is not as fast as he used to be and he sensed too late the danger of a fast, flat, accurate return to the bowler's end. He was at full stretch when Pollock broke the stumps, but was shown, by the TV relays, to be a couple of inches short of his ground.
It was Cronje's third run-out of the series and Hooper has been the victim twice.
When he left with the highest West Indies score of the series, eight fours and 152 balls against his name, another 61 were needed to avoid the follow-on with four wickets remaining.
Only the missed chances allowed the West Indies to get there.
Commonsense
Jacobs had scored 29, with six fours off several different parts of the bat, when he steered Pollock into second slip's lap, and it was left to Gibson, playing with a straight bat and commonsense, to guide the innings towards its initial goal of saving the follow-on.
He lost McLean with eight still required, the left-hander's drive off left-arm spinner Paul Adams taken after a juggling act by Cronje at short extra-cover.
Cronje claimed the new ball with one required, which the injured Curtly Ambrose - using Ganga as his runner - duly got with a stroke to third man after taking Terbrugge's first ball on the elbow.
Favoured with the new ball, Jacques Kallis took no time in despatching Gibson to a second slip catch for 37, made from 75 balls with seven fours, and Merv Dillon to a deflection to the keeper.
When South Africa batted a second time, they did not have to contend with Ambrose, like Donald out with a strained hamstring. But their progress was slowed by the loss of Herschelle Gibbs, Gary Kirsten and Daryl Cullinan at 31 and they took 38 overs to reach their close of play 91 for three.
Gibbs fell to yet another outstanding catch by Jacobs, with left glove low and wide down the leg-side, off the accurate Dillon. Kirsten, to a miscued hook, and Cullinan, lbw, went within two balls in McLean's sixth over.
Cullinan followed his first innings 168 with a duck but Kallis carefully ensured he didn't suffer the same fate as he and Cronje batted out time.
Day 4: Pressure on to save Fourth Test
South Africa buss WI pipe
Their spirit long since broken by superior, unforgiving opponents, the West Indies were on the point of their fourth successive defeat, even more crushing than the others, after four days of the Fourth Test yesterday.
The 421 they were set for victory after the second South African declaration of the match was a meaningless statistic, never before achieved in Test cricket. There was only pride left to play for but there has been little evidence of that this tour and they had all but capitulated at close at 93 for six, captain Brian Lara falling to the jubilant left-arm spinner Paul Adams in the final over for 33.
They were so far behind when play resumed that all they could do was play a waiting game, biding their time for Cronje's closure. The game drifted for much of the additional three hours of the South African second innings, neither batsmen nor bowlers and fielders showing much interest.
Carl Hooper had a lengthy bowl with his off-spin and collected two wickets, Merv Dillon and Nixon McLean one each as South Africa spent 49.2 overs adding 135. Given the precise timing of the declaration, Kallis's tardiness- he scored 60 more off 177 balls-cost him his second hundred of the match to follow his first innings 110. But his all-round talents soon had the West Indies reeling in their second turn at the crease.
The barrel-chested 23-year-old, fast becoming a present-day Keith Miller, was unbeaten on 88 in the second when Hansie Cronje closed the innings an hour after lunch at 226 for seven.
Given the new ball in the absence of the injured Allan Donald, Kallis immediately returned to snare two wickets in his first four overs and another in his second spell.
The realistic West Indian ambitions when they set out on their second innings would have been modest. Victory was out of the question but to reach 300 for the first time in the series would be a moral triumph, to eke out a draw that would save them from the ignominy of a series whitewash as good as outright victory.
But now, having taken so many actual and psychological blows, it turned out that they had lost all stomach for the fight.
Donald, carrying a strained hamstring, took the field but did not bowl. Even without his menace to contend with, the West Indies were three down for 15 inside half-hour and even the multi-coloured national flags of the couple hundred Caribbean supporters who have flown out specially for the experience were nowhere to be seen. The only appropriate flag colour would have been white. The dismantling of the top order has become a mere formality for the South Africans.
Philo Wallace's self-confidence, like that of the team as a whole, has been thoroughly destroyed over the past six weeks. He survived an appeal for a catch at the wicket off Shaun Pollock's fifth ball and another particularly theatrical one for lbw off the sixth. Then off the first ball of the blond pacer's second over, he essayed a nondescript push to one well up on the leg stump and lobbed an easy catch to midon.
At the opposite end, the deceptively pacy Kallis despatched Junior Murray lbw to a ball he attempted to pull off the stumps. When the batsman caught it between the thighs, it seemed headed over the top of the stumps, but that view was not shared by umpire David Orchard.
Twenty minutes later, Kallis claimed Chanderpaul and and the West Indies's embarrassing fate was all but sealed.
The left-handed Chanderpaul fell to a stunning low, left-handed catch at first slip by Daryll Cullinan, Kallis's partner in a first innings stand of 235. It was further proof of the fact that all eleven South Africans contribute to their team effort. It is the major scource of their strength.
After Lara and vice-captain Carl Hooper checked the collapse over the next hour and 25 minutes, Kallis came back from the end opposite his opening salvo to bowl Hooper for 20 off the inside edge of a bat reaching well away from his body for a ball well wide of off-stump.
Lara, after a long, studied approach to his responsibility, took toll of Adams's unorthodox offerings of long-hops and full tosses, pulling him for six and four and cutting him for another four. Daren Ganga was again neat and composed, helping in a stand of 40 when, with the close six minutes away, Pollock achieved his stated personal ambition of passing the 116 Test wickets of his father, Peter, the formidable fast bowler of an earlier time and now chairman of selectors.
Ganga, lbw as he came half-forward, was the young Pollock's victim for the fourth time in as many innings and his 117th in his 29th Test, one more than his father in each instance. At 25, he must think his horizons are limitless.
Ganga is five years younger and also looks to have a promising future but, even in the present distressing circumstances, cultured 15s and 20s will not suffice.
Adams's removal of Lara rounded the day off perfectly for South Africa but the misery for the captain was compounded by the knee injury that has often bothered him and now left him needing attention as the pain flared again at the end of a sharp single.
It was nothing to the pain he must be feeling in his heart. A series that meant so much to him has turned into a nightmare-and there is still one Test and seven One-day Internationals to come.
Day 5: West Indies go down smiling
AT last, even if far too late, there was something to lift West Indian spirits on the last day of the fourth Test yesterday.
South Africa duly completed their fourth successive victory by the irrefutable margin of 149 runs and remain on course to inflict on the West Indies their first 5-0 drubbing, an ironically appropriate ``whitewash'' by opponents still, in the phrase of their impatient Sports Minister Steve Tshwete, still basically ``lilywhite''.
Even so, they were kept waiting until an hour and a quarter after lunch after the West Indies lower order put up their first genuine resistance of the series.
With their fragile top-order swept aside on the previous afternoon, the West Indies position was hopeless as they resumed at 93 for six. Only Ridley Jacobs and the bowlers remained and another swift, psychologically damaging defeat seemed inevitable.
For a change, the tail did not offer its usual meek surrender. With Jacobs at the hub with a solid, unbeaten 69, the last four wickets raised 178 from the day's 51.4 overs before Man of the Match Jacques Kallis completed South Africa's triumph with the second new ball and his fifth wicket to add to his scores of 110 and 88 not out. It was a feat that elevated him into a small band with eight others who have had such a profound all-round influence on a Test match.
``It was nice for us to do some clapping today,'' captain Brian Lara, himself out in the last over the previous day, acknowledged.
``The lower order showed that the South African attack can be dealt with if we do it in a proper manner.''
The overdue West Indian fight was wonderful entertainment for a remarkable crowd of 7,200.
South Africa were clearly handicapped by the strained hamstring that prevented Allan Donald from bowling and by a couple of dropped catches. For the first time in the series, their outcricket was not exceptional and Jacobs and Nixon McLean, Curtly Ambrose and Merv Dillon prospered.
Jacobs, in his debut series aged 31, has been the outstanding exception to the overall West Indian mediocrity. In particular, he has refused to say die, however desperate the situation.
Dropped on a difficult gully catch by Donald off Shaun Pollock in the day's first over before he had scored and taken at midoff off a Pollock no-ball when 60, he remained to the end, undefeated after three and a quarter hours, his ten boundaries evidence of his prompt dispatch of the bad ball.
After Ottis Gibson was run out 40 minutes into the day by Jonty Rhodes's speed from point, Jacobs added 65 with McLean, 34 with Curtly Ambrose and 64 for the last wicket with Dillon.
Gibson's wild slog at Paul Adams off the last ball of the previous afternoon hinted at a quick finish on resumption. Instead, it seemed to have a chastening effect and there was none of the rank indifference of earlier innings. Bats were straight, eyes were on the ball and body behind it and McLean and Dillon shook off blows to the helmet, remarked their guards and got on with it.
Quick to pounce on the short ball, the powerful McLean belted three sixes as massive as some of his four in the Second Test. The third off Kallis landed in the adjoining Newlands railway station at midwicket. His second aim for the railway station off Kallis ended 50 yards short in Adams's hands on the midwicket boundary. In addition to his sixes, his 39 included four fours and came from 49 balls.
The limping Ambrose took his place, with Daren Ganga as runner, and made 19 off 34 balls. His strained hamstring did not prevent him standing tall and delivering four driven boundaries before he pushed Adams into the waiting hands of short-leg.
Dillon appeared at No. 11 to stay an hour and, with Jacobs, record the highest last wicket partnership against South Africa in a Newlands Test. He too benefited from a missed catch, substitute Ashwell Prince, putting him down at point when he was 9, an error that allowed him to display some of the most thrilling strokes of the match.
Four of his five fours in his Test best 36 were executed with a bent knee and a flourishing straight bat, back overhead. They were shades of Everton Weekes for those with long memories.
It was always going to be in vain but at least the day's dashing resistance brought smiles back to faces wreathed only in frowns only a few hours earlier.
It was inspiration as welcome as it was unexpected. There is still another month left on this tour, with the final Test starting in Pretoria in ten days to be followed by seven one-day internationals before they jump from the frying pan into the fire for the home series against Australia.