The West Indies' batting collapse on today's second day of the third Test was so remarkably bad, that even former Windies captain and commentator Viv Richards described it as one of the poorest batting performances he has ever seen. The disappointment and embarrassment was palpable in his voice as the Windies collapsed from 216/4 to 229 all out. The Windies had lost 6 wickets for 13 runs in the space of 44 deliveries.
The day started positively enough, as the Windies were able to wrap up the English tail for 74 additional runs as England fell for 370 runs. Given the Windies' batting frailty, 370 looked like it could have been daunting. However, the Windies' top order, save for Daren Ganga, all got starts and carried the Windies score to 216/4. Gayle, 23, Devon Smith, 40, Morton, 35, Chanderpaul, 50 and Bravo 23 all made useful contributions, but at least 1 or 2 of them needed to go on and make a big score.
The Windies total was aided by an astonishing 42 extras as the English pacers, in particular Steve Harmison and Liam Plunkett, bowled with remarkable lack of control, often spraying the ball way outside the offstump or legstump. England's poor bowling was only bested by the Windies poor batting at the end as except for Bravo and Daren Sammy, the Windies batsmen gave away their wickets tamely. The fact that England had a 141 run first inning lead after how poorly they bowled (the Windies were going at over 5 an over when they reached 200) showed how poorly the Windies performed with the bat.
UPDATE: England ended the day's play on 34/1. Fidel Edwards took Andrew Strauss' wicket in the first over with a clear cut lbw decision. Edwrads also sent down 6 more no balls in addition to his 10 in the first innings. The penultimate over featured a ridiculous decision by umpire Billy Bowden, as Alastair Cook gave a thickish inside edge to a delivery that was clearly caught low down by wicket keeper Denesh Ramdin. As the Windies players stared around in disbelief, the batsmen scampered a single and Bowden had to belatedly signal the run a bye.
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