The West Indies took firm control of the first Test match against South Africa today, but gave South Africa a fighting chance with the familiar 'calypso collapso' in the third session of the day's play.
With South Africa resuming on 122/5, the Windies got the early breakthrough that they needed when Jerome Taylor removed Mark Boucher at 129/6. AB deVilliers (59) and Paul Harris (9) staged a mini fightback and took the score to 172 before Dwayne Bravo bowled deVilliers. Bravo then cleaned up the tail to finish with figures of 4-24 from 13 tight overs.
With a massive 213 run first innings lead, captain Gayle must have thought about enforcing the follow-on. In fact, only three times have a team come back to win after following on in the history of Test cricket. Perhaps Gayle wanted, much as Australia's Ricky Ponting likes, to bat the opposition out of the game and totally demoralise them. Whatever the thinking, Gayle made a captain's decision, but his batsmen failed to back him though.
Cruising along at 122/2 the wheels started to fall off when a quick call by Marlon Samuels (40) and hesitation led to the run out of Daren Ganga (45) by Herschelle Gibbs with a direct hit. Why call a quick single against one of the best fielders in the world? Samuels himself would later chop a too-close-to-pull delivery onto his stumps and the collapse was on. Chanderpaul (8), Bravo (10), Ramdin (0) and Sammy (3) would fall in quick succession leaving the Windies second innings precariously placed at 146/8 at stumps.
With an overall lead of 359 all is not lost. In fact, the West Indies are still firmly in command of the match, but certainly missed a glorious opportunity to put the result beyond doubt. Now South Africa will feel that they at least have a chance of winning the match. Overnight batsmen Taylor (2n.o.) and Powell(0n.o.) will look to frustrate the Proteas' bowlers tomorrow. If somehow Taylor, Powell and Fidel Edwards can bat for about an hour tomorrow and push the lead towards 400 then that would almost certainly beyond South Africa's grasp. In fact with the highest ever fourth innings score at St George's Park, Port Elizabeth being 273 (by South Africa) in 1961, 359 may already be beyond South Africa.
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