<quack>
My two pennyworth - overall, it was the least impressive England bowling performance since, er, the last test.
They (Hoggard and Harmison) bowled reasonably ok for the first hour, but it was under the circumstances the wrong type of bowling. It was almost as though they had seen a pitch which was a throwback to 30 years ago (pace, bounce) and decided that they had to bang it in.
The lbw decisions to dismiss the openers were both poor, but Ganga had a plumb lbw turned down and you all know what I think about padding up. For the rest of the morning session, England continued to bang it in far too short and Lara and Sarwan had few problems.
Lunch for me was beans on toast with a few dried chillies in the beans. The West Indian cricketers must have felt confident of getting the scoreboard moving in the afternoon. For me, the beans and chillies were likely to have a similar effect.
More of the same from England in the afternoon - probably their poorest cricket on the tour. Fast bowlers often use a bouncer as a shock tactic to dismiss a stubborn batsman. Yesterday, Flintoff showed us a new take on the 'shock tactic' - he decided to use a good ball to Lara. The West Indian captain, unused to such a surprise delivery in the context of the match, helped the ball into the waiting hands of Butcher, who clung on. Two surprises in one.
Sarwan and Chanderpaul had few difficulties in taking the home team through to tea without further loss. A couple of one over spells by Harmison, back to his square-leg-umpire-threatening-best, came and went for about 9 runs each, the West Indian batsmen took a safety-first approach, ensuring that edges only went to Thorpe and Butcher, and tea arrived with the Islanders on 155-3 - back in the game with a vengeance.
The evening session saw norml service resumed. England, ably led by Harmison, took the unusual approach of putting the ball in the right place on the odd occasion. At the other end, we had Ashley Giles.
Sarwan hung out his bat, Harmison obliged by putting the ball in the batsman's half and Sarwan made the fatal error of edging the ball to the one slip fielder who can actually catch on occasion. A Harmison bouncer (aka a stock delivery) was heaved to Jones at deep backward square.
England's tactic of using Giles as comic value from one end brought them a sixth wicket as Harmison gave way to Flintoff. Jacobs, still laughing, unsuccessfully tried to fend one off and Collingwood, on for Hoggard, took a fine catch.
This West Indian side has a tail worthy of the name. Apart from a few twitches by Tino Best, the rest didn't have a clue. Fidel Edwards was heard to ask Brian Lara for advice as he went out to bat : "Hold the thin end" came the reply.
5 for Flintoff, 3 for Harmison, 1 for Jones, 1 for Hoggard who IMO was the only bowler worthy of a mention in the first 2 sessions yet who so cruelly went down with what was thought at the time was cramp, but was later revealed to be the most severe case of chapped lips the England physio had ever seen, on account of his licking them too much.
A dozen tricky overs at the end of the day were successfully negotiated without loss
<LE> I must interrupt you there, DD. England lost the wicket of Trescothick
As I was saying, ... successfully negotiated without loss, and they will feel confident of making far better use of what looks to be a very good batting track today.
