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Lara and Gayle lift Windies

Sunday, April 11 2004

The bruised and beaten West Indies cricketers had new life breathed into them today as they featured a spirited batting display amidst showers at the ARG. Chris Gayle (69) led the early charge on the flat track, but it was captain Brian Lara who stole the show until the end of the day.

Both teams made changes from their third Test XI's. For the home side, Ricardo Powell made his return to the Test side after playing his lone match on the 1999/00 tour of New Zealand. The visitors debuted Geraint Jones as Chris Read's replacement, and Gareth Batty came into the team to replace an under-the-weather Ashley Giles. With those pre-game technicalities out of the way, the two captains moved to the middle where Lara won the toss for the third time in the series and batted first for the fourth time.

Gayle and Ganga started very cautiously, but Gayle soon found his elusive rhythm, smashing the ball through the covers and in the 'v' with supreme timing and power. He lost Ganga (10) with the score on 33, out-thought by Andrew Flintoff. Flintoff had just put a man back for the hook shot and executed a sharp bouncer the ball before, then caught his opponent on the crease and plumb in front of the stumps with a length ball.

Captain Lara came to the middle on the ground where he scored the then record 375 a decade ago. He survived an early scare, following a Harmison delivery outside the offstump which was succeeded by a loud, yet unsuccessful appeal. The English team was stunned at the decision and the West Indian spectators were relieved. There was a clear and apparent noise as the ball passed the bat, but replays suggested that there was no clear deflection, and umpire Hair saw enough doubt to rule in the negative. The next ball was frustratingly run between the slip cordon and gully for a boundary to get Lara off the mark.

This was to be the first of his eleven such boundaries on the day, but Lara played second fiddle to Gayle initially in their 55-run stand for the second wicket. Gayle reached his fifty with a square drive for 2 runs off his 62nd ball, but perished to the penultimate ball of the session, lobbing a simple catch to Batty, in his first over. At 98/2, the teams went to lunch.

Now a protracted rain delay of four hours until play was restarted. From there it was almost all West Indies. The boundaries flowed off the bat of Lara, but his deputy Sarwan looked far less assured. He was struck painfully by Batty, then edged Jones through the vacant second slip position and, to cap it off, he inside edged Harmison just past offstump late in play. Still, he survived and ended unbeaten on 41.

Brian Lara pulled Jones to the boundary to reach his first fifty of the series and by the close of play he had blitzed to 86 not out from just 115 balls. The English bowlers tried hard, but ultimately were faced with one of the best batting tracks in the world and Brian Lara approaching his best form. When stumps were drawn, the West Indian score read a commendable 208/2 from the 52 overs available on day one. Steve Harmison, searching for six more wickets to break the all-time English record for a single series, went wicketless for 42 runs in his 14 overs, but it was Simon Jones - 0/57 from 8 overs - who felt the brunt of attack.

Play will expectedly start half-an-hour early (9:30 local time) tomorrow to make up for time lost due rain.

Posted by Liam