The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : Windies cuts a sorry figure

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Aug 21, 2004

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Sport - Cricket

Windies cuts a sorry figure

By Ted Corbett

LONDON, AUG. 20. We watched a team disintegrate at the Oval this afternoon as England rubbed salt into the wound of every dropped catch, every fumble in the field and every piece of bad bowling West Indies perpetrated in one of the most wretched sessions of Test play witnessed in the last 127 years.

England lost its overnight batsmen Andrew Flintoff and Geraint Jones in five balls before most of us were comfortable in our seats without a run added and the scene was set, against all expectations, of a quick collapse and the chance for West Indies to pile up a decent score and maybe redeem its unhappy tour with a last minute win.

In the days of Courtney Walsh and Curtly Ambrose, Michael Holding and Andy Roberts maybe. Now we should have known better.

Instead of a collapse we had 100 runs in the next two hours. That competent batsman Ashley Giles hit his third Test fifty, Matthew Hoggard repeatedly turned his shambling gait into nimble footwork as they put together an eighth-wicket stand of 87 and then, shame of shames, when the two were out in successive overs, Steve Harmison, who may be harmful with the ball but who is often harmless with the bat, and the No. 11 James Anderson put on 60 for the last wicket, mostly in half an hour after lunch. Harmison hit three sixes.

Abysmal fielding

The West Indies fielding was abysmal. Captain Brian Lara, one of the world's finest fielders, dropped Hoggard after getting two hands to the ball. Carlton Baugh, the wicketkeeper, dropped Giles, low to his left and Hoggard high above his head. Throws went astray, the ball was half stopped, not stopped and allowed to slip into no man's land. It was a low-class shambles not worthy of the new Oval setting, all tidy, neat and colourful.

West Indies set off in pursuit of 470 — or 271 to avoid the follow-on — with not much more conviction than their bowlers showed. Chris Gayle was out just when he seemed to be set and Sylvester Joseph followed, beautifully caught by Giles in the gully in Harmison's next over so that two had gone for three runs.

Lara was greeted by the sight of Flintoff warming up — a reminder of three successes in four innings — and lost his vice-captain Sarwan in the 11th over at 26.

Lara was beaten often and might have been lbw to Flintoff who bowled furiously; he seemed, for the first time in the series, to be weighed down by the plight of his team while he was batting. It has been a tough tour, even remembering the whitewash in South Africa when he had Ambrose and Walsh to call on. What he would give for them now, even as they touch 40.

He and Chanderpaul brought up 50 just before tea but he showed all was not well by slicing the ball through the slips in Flintoff's final over; it was already an uncharacteristic innings but after all that had gone before, can anyone wonder?

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