CRICKET FIFTH TEST – WEST INDIES v ENGLANDENGLAND'S HOPES of levelling the Test series in the Caribbean were landed a punishing blow by West Indian defiance at Queen's Park Oval yesterday.
West Indies made light of an injury to captain Chris Gayle to nullify England’s victory bid, restricting their opponents to just three wickets on the third day.
Gayle experienced a bittersweet afternoon as he was forced to retire hurt with a hamstring strain, sustained as he was running the single to reach his 10th Test hundred.
West Indies were 195 for three at that point, still 152 runs adrift of avoiding the follow-on, but they were eased to 349 for four by the close thanks to an unbroken 145-run stand between Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Brendan Nash.
England were buoyed by two breakthroughs in the opening hour but it was a case of missed opportunities on another friendly batting surface.
Recalled left-arm spinner Monty Panesar was the pick of the five-man attack and might have had a handful of wickets on another day.
If fortune was against him, however, it appeared to be on the tourists’ side when Gayle was forced from the field, after taking advantage of an Owais Shah misfield.
There was not a run on when left-hander Gayle turned the ball to the leg side but the fumble encouraged him to scamper through.
He suffered the discomfort as he stretched to make his ground, although had Shah’s shy hit the stumps at the non-striker’s end, instead of narrowly missing, England would have claimed a fourth success. They did so when Lendl Simmons’ error of judgment handed Panesar a second victim on his Test return.
Simmons, making his Test bow on his home ground, pressed forward and was struck on the pad in line with middle stump to increase England’s hopes of gaining a sizeable advantage.
It came at around the same time that reports came from the home dressingroom that Gayle would only bat if necessary and would head for an MRI scan tomorrow.
Earlier, debutant Amjad Khan claimed the prize scalp of Ramnaresh Sarwan as his maiden international wicket, lbw in his first over of the third day.
Umpire Daryl Harper’s raising of the finger sparked jubilant England celebrations – captain Gayle dissuaded Sarwan from challenging the decision, it was so emphatically out – and great relief for Paul Collingwood.
The tourists appeared to have missed their chance when Collingwood floored a knee-high sitter offered to slip by Sarwan off Panesar, who produced a beauty which turned sharply to find the edge.
Both England men fell to their knees in disappointment but moments later the mood altered as a full delivery from Kent’s Khan did the trick and increased English hopes of pulling off the win they require from this match to share the Wisden Trophy.
Sarwan, whose previous lowest score of the campaign was 94, departed for 14.
Just as in Antigua and Barbados, Andrew Strauss’ team lacked penetration on an unforgiving surface and Nash reached his half-century in the third over with the new ball via an upper-cut over the slips off Khan, his ninth boundary.
At the other end, Chanderpaul once again highlighted the virtue of patience by reaching his painstaking 50 off 142 deliveries.
The hosts were given a helping hand past their follow-on target when wicketkeeper Matt Prior allowed another set of four byes through in the penultimate over of the day, thus equalling the England record of 30 in an innings.
