Rain, No Play

At lunch, in chase of the record 475 needed for victory, the Windies were 316/5, still 159 runs away, and having lost the wickets of Bravo and Chanderpaul. After it appeared that Chanderpaul and Bravo would have batted through to lunch, both fell in quick succession about 20 minutes from the interval. Chanderpaul and Bravo had taken the score to 303/3 with Bravo making an attacking 69. After taking 3 sixes off Beau Casson, Bravo however, went on the front foot and pushed a Casson delivery low into the hands of short cover. The next over, Stuart Clark had Chanderpaul lbw to a delivery that hit in line but was too high to hit the wicket. The umpire adjudged it close enough and gave Chanderpaul out for 50. Chanderpaul had crossed the 8,000 Test runs plateau during his innings.  read more »

[image from Digicel's Match gallery]

After bowling out the Australians for a mere 251, the Windies failed to capitalise on the advantage they had as they managed a mere 216 in reply on the second day of the Third Test at Bridgetown. Once again, Shivnarine Chanderpaul was the anchor of the innings. Chanderpaul was left undefeated on 79 as the last 6 wickets fell for 48 runs. It was the kind of pathetic batting display that Windies fans have long hoped to see the end of.

The innings got off to a shaky start with openers Chris Gayle (14) and Sewnarine Chattergoon (6) falling cheaply. Gayle and Chattergoon were playing their first match in the series due to injury. Sarwan fell shortly after at 64/3. Xavier Marshall played some good drives in his 39, but one felt he was too aggressive and that his dismissal was always imminent. Dwayne Bravo joined Chanderpaul and they rebuilt the innings, taking the total from 108-4 to 168-5 when Bravo was caught down the legside. Bravo's dismissal was the correct decision (this time), and was definitely ironic given Bravo being given out in the last Test in a phantom legside catch decision and the umpires' giving Aussie Andrew Symonds twice not out to legitimate legside catches off Bravo's bowling in this series.

At Bravo's dismissal, the wheels came off the innings as the Windies tail was simply out of their league. Some like Daren Powell and Jerome Taylor played horrible shots. Some like Fidel Edwards got deliveries that were simply too good for them.

With a deficit of only 35 runs, all is not lost for the Windies, but they will have to once again depend on their bowlers to get them back in the game, as their batsmen, save the dependable Chanderpaul, make the most of the advantage they gained after dismissing Australia for 251. Chanderpaul, the anchor of the Windies' batting since the retirement of Brian Lara, has made scores of 118, 11, 107 n.o., 77 n.o. and 79 n.o. in this series. In fact, since Chanderpaul became the 'biggest bat' in the side on Lara's retirement, he has averaged 110.45 with 5 centuries and 8 fifties in the 11 Tests he has played. And that against opposition the likes of England, South Africa, Sri Lanka and now Australia. Is there any doubt that Chanderpaul is one of the all time great West Indian batsmen?

Chanderpaul scored yet another hundred today against Australia.

What can you say about Chanderpaul? Another battling hundred to save the Windies innings.

Of course these numbers will change, but with him on 104 n.o. in this match, he has now scored 927 runs for an average of 103 in 9 Test matches since the start of the England tour last year May. In that time span he has scored 4 centuries and 6 fifties.

Imagine that. Averaging over 100 for a one year time frame. Bradmanesque?

UPDATE: Chanderpaul was out for 118, mistiming a pull off a full toss. This drops his average for the period from May 17, 2007 (the start of the England tour) to now to 94.10.

Backed by unbeaten half centuries from Shiv Chanderpaul 52n.o. and Marlon Samuels 54n.o., the Windies strolled to an easy 7 wicket victory in the second ODI at Port-Of-Spain. This made it 2 from 2 and guaranteed a series victory in the 3 match series. The Windies were set a target of 125 from 25 overs after rain cut short the Sri Lankan innings to 112/5 off 30.3 overs. Jerome Taylor and Dwayne Bravo were miserly and had the Sri Lankan batsmen struggling throughout their rain interrupted innings.

After the Duckworth-Lewis rule left the home side a target of 125 off 25 overs, the Windies struggled initially as they slumped to 18/3. However the dependable Chanderpaul and the short-of-form Samuels put together an unbeaten century stand to win the match. The third and final match will be in St. Lucia on Tuesday, April 15.

Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Ottis Gibson were this week named among the five Cricketers of the Year by Wisden Cricket Almanack. This was the first time that any West Indian had been included in the annual list since 1997 when Phil Simmons got the honour.

Chanderpaul was almost a one man show in England last year for the West Indies and he continued his good form in South Africa late last year. Chanderpaul tied a Test record by making scores of at least 50 in 7 consecutive innings.  read more »

I always enjoy the commentators' reactions. Ian Bishop kinda loses it at the end, but so did all of us who watched it live! Talk about snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. The story was almost the reverse though as the Windies had Sri Lanka at 49/5 in their innings and the Windies were at one time 109/1 in chase of Sri Lanka's 235.  read more »

Video courtesy of powen001.  read more »

Shivnarine Chanderpaul(104) did today what Marlon Samuels and Chris Gayle failed to do yesterday...convert his half-century into a ton. In notching up his 17th Test century, Chanderpaul guided the Windies to a very respectable first innings score of 408. After losing overnight partner Dwayne Bravo (12) and wicketkeeper Denesh Ramdin (1) early on, Chanderpaul received good support from Darren Sammy(38) as the Windies put Dale Steyn (2 - 121) and Makhaya Ntini to the sword, in compiling their challenging total. When Chanderpaul passed 50, he tied the world record for most successive fifties, this being his seventh in consecutive innings dating back to his virtuoso performance in England of this year.  read more »

Shivnarine Chanderpaul once again fought alone.

At Riverside in the fourth Test, Shiv Chanderpaul continued his valiant, almost singled handed effort in fighting for West Indian pride. Unfortunately, as has been the case for so long, his fight was in vain as the other members of the team rolled over and played dead before a rampant English squad.

With Gayle and Chanderpaul resuming the from the overnight score of 83/3, still 30 runs behind England's first innings total, batting out the day should have been the goal. The first session went well enough, with only Gayle (52) losing his wicket, edging one of his expansive drives to slip. The post lunch session, however, was horrible for any West Indian as the Windies lost 6 wickets for 88 runs to put England in the match winning position. The manner in which many of the batsmen got out left much to be desired as in addition to Gayle and Runako Morton on the previous day, Dwayne Bravo (44) and Daren Powell got out to absolutely ridiculous shots. Denesh Ramdin and Marlon Samuels fell cheaply as well, but at least they got decent deliveries from Monty Panesar. Chanderpaul was last man out for 70, leaving the English the small total of 110 to chase. England then raced to 111/3 with all of 30 overs remaining in the days play.  read more »

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.  read more »