Windies Batsmen Crumble; Huge Defeat Looms
Sun, Jun 23, '02
reprinted from WISDEN ONLINE
The fragile impression of West Indies cricket in the ascendancy,
which may have been engendered by the series win against India, was
spectacularly dismantled by New Zealand in less than two sessions
at Bridgetown.
After laboriously struggling to wrap up the New Zealand innings,
the West Indies were blown away in a little over three hours for
107. They were only spared the ignominy of following on by Stephen
Fleming?s fear of batting last on pitch which gave every impression
of disintegrating by the session.
If the West Indies bowling, bar one post-lunch hour on the first
day, had been poor then their batting sunk one notch lower. Little
or no regard had been paid to the way that Fleming and Robbie Hart
had rescued the New Zealand innings with grit and careful
shot-selection. The first four West Indies wickets to fall ? Chris
Gayle, Sarwan, Wavell Hinds and Carl Hooper - all perished to rash
strokes and at tea their innings stood in tatters at 56 for 4.
With Brian Lara and Shivnarine Chanderpaul in situ at the break
there was hope for West Indies. But Lara was bowled by the
impressive Daniel Vettori straight after the restart and from there
the innings crawled to a miserable conclusion. Only Chanderpaul,
unbeaten at 35, looked to have the necessary application to stand
and fight, but he found no-one willing to hold up the other end. It
was a telling contrast to the resilience shown by the New Zealand
tail.
Resuming on 257 for 6, New Zealand lost just the one wicket before
lunch ? that of Vettori - testament to combination of directionless
West Indies bowling and dogged resistance from Hart, who completed
his maiden half-century in just his second Test and eventually
finished on 57 not out.
After the break the hitherto innocuous Darren Powell stuck twice to
dismiss Daryll Tuffey and Shane Bond and then Ian Butler was run
out. West Indies had taken three wickets inside 20 minutes ? the
problem was the it had taken them over four hours to take the
previous two. They achieved one more success before the close of
the day when Mark Richardson was well caught by Lara at first slip
off Pedro Collins for 0 in the first over of New Zealand?s second
innings.
Barring a remarkable change in fortunes, West Indies will be facing
a total in excess of 400 in the fourth innings on a wicket on which
Vettori extracted considerable turn and bounce on only the second
day. So spineless was the West Indies batting that only the weather
can save them from defeat and, according to the forecasters, even
the seasonal rains appear to have deserted them.
** SOURCE: Wisden Online.