Shivnarine Chanderpaul continued his "Mighty Mouse" impersonation in this series and came to the Windies rescue again today. Dwayne Bravo joined him and the pair featured in an unbroken 77 run partnership for the fifth wicket on second day of the fourth and final Test at Chester-Le-Street.
The Test match started after lunch on the second day after rain had washed out the opening day. Put in to bat, the Windies were in trouble right away as Ryan Sidebottom had Daren Ganga's wicket with the first ball of the match. Ganga was slightly unlucky in that he turned a fullish delivery straight into the chest of Alastair Cook at bat pad. Maybe he should heed Sir Everton Weeke's famous advice of not hitting the ball in the air next time. The other three wickets that fell were all due to poor shot selection. Chris Gayle (28), already suffering a poor tour, went for an almighty heave-ho against Matthew Hoggard and was plum lbw when he missed the ball. Gayle looked out of sorts as he tried to blast his way out of his rut by going for big shots. Devon Smith's heart must have sunk when he left a straight one from Sidebottom only to hear the deadly sound of timber rattling behind him. He made only 4. Smith was probably expecting the ball to swing away from him, given the prodigious swing that Sidebottom had earlier extracted, but you can't just leave a ball that's headed straight for your stumps, swing or no swing. Runako Morton (6) did his best to outdo Gayle for the worst shot of the day when he tried to drive a shortish ball from Steve Harmison and gave a simple catch to Sidebottom in the covers.
At 55 for 4 the Windies looked all but dead, but Chanderpaul (44n.o.) and Bravo (43n.o.) demonstrated how to bat in the conditions. Bravo was particularly circumspect, playing the ball on its merit. Chanderpaul survived a sharp chance on 9 at third slip, but his dogged batting again proved to be a thorn in the English team's side. Chanderpaul passed 7,000 Test runs during his innings, the 7th West Indian to do so. With batting conditions set to improve tomorrow, these two hold the key to any chance the Windies have of posting a decent first innings score.
Darren Sammy was not fit enough to play following his hamstring injury while batting in the last Test and Jerome Taylor was dropped from the team that played in the Third Test. Taking their place was Daren Powell and Marlon Samuels, who following his letter last week, has found himself in the final XI after all.
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