Windies move ahead... shakily
After begginning their innings just after lunch at 4.00pm, the West Indies moved on, at a rapid loss of wickets much like England but nonetheless scored the runs, slowly, at around 2 per over.
It has not been an easy innings so far. Firstly, an hour was lost after only two overs due to rain and then the West Indies had to see out the rest of the day, fairly successful with only the loss of Gayle (3), below, caught at square leg by Monty Panesar of all people!
Not long afterwards Chanderpaul was dropped whilst still on 0, yet fell for a hard earned 56-ball 23. Important runs when such a small total is set by the opposition.
And so with Brian Lara the runs began to flow. It was slow, but they were continuous slow runs, with few maidens in this time. Lara had a few slogs, particularly a well executed sweep-slog (below). Alas, he fell just as he was in for 31 valuable runs. Sarwan (14) and Bravo (11) both fell in the teens before lunch, with Ramdin on 5* and Mohammed on 0*.
And so, the West Indies went in for lunch at 90/5. An extremely poor score by any standards, but they will be hoping that with very slow batting (remember this is only going into seesion 2 on day 2!) they cant reach 150 and this may be enough for a small 4th innings total.
And lunch, we can hear Boycott saying about the quality of this pitch. "Not up to test match standards, we had much better pitches in my day. This will never last 4 or 5 days! B'ah im off for some chicken and cucumber sandwhiches Mark!" For once, we have to agree with him, what a dreadful pitch this is.
By 4pm it was all over. The West Indies had folded for 137. Giving them a valuable 52 run lead over England. The Windies will be hoping for a similar bowling performance this time, although they are unlikely to receive the gift of three top order run outs, a 4th innings total of less than 100 may be on the cards.
Amazingly, Monty Panesar (who did not bowl through the entirity of the innings! Although it was only 60 overs) took SIX catches at square leg in this innings. All of a different variety also, but what a peculiar thing. Geraint Jones took the other three behind the stumps after dropping Chanderpaul early on leaving Jerome Taylor, who went down the order in the hope that with his superior defence could hang around with Ramdin at the end, although this turned out not to be. Fidel Edwards was the only member of the tail that wagged (discounting Ramdin that is) with a quickfire 13 from 8 balls before secumming to Jones behind the stumps (pictured).
Mohammed also hung around for a good while for his six runs and provided to support to Ramdin after being given a reprieve by 2nd slip on 1.
It was Harmison who did the real damage, after his Ashes woes he is back on form at home with 4 for 58. Matthew Hoggard chipped in with three wickets at extreme value costing just 20 runs! Full innings analysis below.
but here goes. I will be touring as the West Indies and I will try my best to keep updates going regularly
But a bad start to Kp though!
