Chanders leads Windies charge
Tuesday, May 4 2004
Same stage, same script, different players and the fat lady sang the same song. The West Indies rallied once more to chase a challenging total in the sixth ODI against England, taking a 2-1 lead in the rain-affected series.
Batting first again, England this time fell a run short of their Saturday effort, ending at 280/8 in the 50 overs. Leading the charge this time was Andrew Strauss, who reached his maiden limited overs international half-century until eventually perishing for 67. Earlier it was Michael Vaughan who starred though, scoring his second ODI fifty in aggressive fashion. His innings was finally ended with a direct hit from Ricardo Powell, run out for 67.
At Vaughan's departure, the score read 141/2, and contributions from Flintoff (43) and Collingwood (38) were crucial in support of Strauss to push the score to 280. Strauss' innings saw 82 balls and he hit 7 fours over its course.
With the confidence of having successfully chased 282 a day before, the West Indies began their reply. The first ball off Gayle's bat raced to boundary from a slight push to square leg. That would be his only such though, as Gough had Gayle trapped in front for 9 soon after - 15/1. Flashbacks to Guyana, Chanderpaul tore into the English pace bowling and blazed away to 50 runs from 42 balls. Partnered by Powell (38), 97 runs were added for the second wicket.
The introduction of Batty accounted for Powell to an overconfident bit of aggression, and the subsequent introduction of Clarke saw much of the same, Chanderpaul (63) the man out - 113/3. Lara survived a confident and close appeal for LBW early on and went on to assist in a 72-run partnership for the fourth wicket.
Though bewildered and struggling to contain the runs, the English bowlers continued to run in manfully. A clever slower ball from Flintoff accounted for Sarwan (28) and Dwayne Smith (18) gifted his wicket to Batty due a fine running catch by Strauss at deep midwicket. Suddenly, with the score reading 206/5, England were back in the game.
New batsman Dwayne Bravo smashed a Clarke full toss through the covers for a boundary early in his innings and batted maturely under the wing of Lara (57), who eventually top-edged a hook against Harmison to be caught at long leg by Gough.
Now Jacobs moved to the middle and the equation read a very manageable 37 runs from 10 overs. There were few scares as Bravo and Jacobs knocked the runs off with sensible batting rather than explosive play. Bravo ended the game similar to the way he did on Saturday, with a boundary off Gough this time, rather than the six he hit off the same bowler yesterday. He ended unbeaten on an impressive 33 and Jacobs on 19.
Chanderpaul walked away with the Man of the Match award for his fiery start to the run chase.
Match Summary:
England innings 280/8 (50 overs)
(MP Vaughan/AJ Strauss 67 [78/82], A Flintoff 43 [47])
(CH Gayle 2/39 [10])
West Indies innings 282/6 (47.1 overs)
(S Chanderpaul 63 [55], BC Lara 57 [68], RL Powell 38 [32])
(GJ Batty 2/40 [9])
Posted by Liam
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