Partnerships, And Catches, Win Matches
At the close on the third day of the second test at Port of Spain, England held what amounted to a decisive advantage. On a pitch with increasingly variable bounce, England were 92 runs ahead with four wickets still in hand, including Thorpe with 81*.
This time, no one could accuse the West Indian bowlers of not sticking to their task. Lara could not have been happy about the number of extras conceded, 17 no-balls and 3 wides. That apart, the bowlers did put enough pressure on England right through the day.
Tino Best was the pick of the bowlers, bowling with pace and but for the occasional delivery, with accuracy as well. He picked up the wickets of Butcher, thanks to a borderline decision and Hussain, bowled by an incutter. Pedro Collins revelled in his newly rediscovered ability to bring the ball back into the righthander, trapping Chris Read leg before in identical fashion to Vaughan.
However, the highlight of the day was the application shown by the English batsmen. None of the top order batsmen are really in the sort of form that Kallis or Dravid are in at the moment, and conditions for batting were hardly easy. Yet, Butcher, Hussain and Thorpe stayed true to their script and fought their way to each run.
A single rash shot or cavalier attempt to take on a West Indian bowler could have resulted in an early wicket, possibly after a few boundaries of questionable value. The English trio are experienced enough to know better than to take that approach. Butcher, combining luck and grit in equal measure, and Hussain, as stodgy as ever, eventually put on 120 runs before they were separated.
Hussain and Thorpe then added a further 62 before Best found his way through Hussain's defences. Flintoff was starting to do some damage before he became Dwayne Smith's second victim in tests. At the end of the day, Thorpe, soldiering on despite a blow from an accidental beamer from Best, and Giles added a further 70.
As much as wickets falling in twos and threes was the story of the West Indian innings, partnerships have been the story of the English innings. The old adage says that partnerships win matches, in which case England are well on the way to winning this one.
The other old cricketing maxim is 'catches win matches', and the West Indies have not really looked a winning side in that regard either.
At the start of the day, the best the West Indies could have expected was to dismiss England for a reasonable score, to turn this into a single innings game. However, in such a game the side batting first has to play under pressure to set a decent fourth innings total. That certainly did not happen in Jamaica, and it would be an optimistic West Indies fan who would expect something very different to happen here. The 6'5'' Harmison, to put it mildly, is certainly going to pose some problems on a surface with uneven bounce.
Still, another old adage comes to mind, 'Cricket is a game of glorious uncertainties'. And, for all their recent miseries, predicting the performance of the West Indies still remains a gloriously uncertain proposition.
* Venky Maly's writing has been featured on CaribbeanCricket.com since 2001. Inspired by the memories of Viv Richards in full flight, he endeavours to chart the gloriously uncertain course of West Indian cricket with his match reports, analyses and opinion pieces.