da luck： Ricky Skerritt would have taken in a healthy monetary collection afterthe first day of the fifth and final Test yesterday
Tony Cozier20-Apr-2001Ricky Skerritt would have taken in a healthy monetary collection afterthe first day of the fifth and final Test yesterday.The West Indies manager, acting on suggestions from his captain andcoach, has instituted a system of fines for this match for thoseguilty of the slackness evident throughout the series.Some would have had to pay up last night for wanton shots that haveput the West Indies in a familiar bind at 214 for nine and the mostculpable was Carl Hooper himself.The skipper entered the fray in the first over after lunch with theWest Indies already in strife at 54 for four and Alan Donald, fast andeager, making up for the Antigua Test he missed with a strainedhamstring.Hooper met Brian Lara, on seven, so that the responsibility of arecovery rested with the West Indies’ two best and most experiencedbatsmen.For an hour-and-25-minutes, they played with the diligence thesituation, and their roles, demanded.They added 53 and raised the spirits of a small Sabina Park depressedby the earlier, cheap loss of the three young Jamaicans of whom LeonGarrick’s first innings in Test cricket was ended by Donald’s firstball of the match.Concerned by the growing partnership, Shaun Pollock devised a plan asold as the game itself. He set a deep square-leg back and simplychallenged the batsmen to hook.It had worked twice in the series but then the delinquent batsman wasRamnaresh Sarwan, a boy of 20, new to the ways of Test cricket. Hecould scarcely believe that he could so con someone in his 85th Testand the captain at that. But he did. In his seventh over of a lengthyspell after lunch, captain Pollock set up his counterpart with aclever slower ball that he pushed into the off-side, followed by thebouncer, fast and rising steeply.Hooper could not control his first hook shot of the day and the ballsailed fully 60 yards into Gary Kristen’s safe grasp. It was a stroke,like the pull that lobbed to mid-on in his previous innings inAntigua, that was not uncommon in his earlier cricketing life but thathe had seemed to exorcise since his return.In Pollock’s next over, Ridley Jacobs, who has fallen into a slumpsince his unbeaten113 in the third Test, edged Pollock to wicketkeeper Mark Boucher who held one of the five out of the eight catchesoffered him for the day.It left the West Indies 107 for five and Lara with the bowlers to seewhat they could make of the last half of the innings. That theyexactly doubled the total was due to Lara’s skilfully compiled 81,lasting three hours, 50 minutes with 12 fours, spirited batting byMerv Dillon, 25, and Dinanath Ramnarine, unbeaten 28, and luck.Fortune smiled most on Dillon who had two chances to Boucher, thefirst before he had scored, and one to Lance Klusener at midon; theball after he hoisted left-arm spinner Paul Adams for the day’s onlysix.The West Indian wastefulness began with the first ball of the matchwhen Garrick, the diminutive, 24-year-old opener on debut, cut Donaldobligingly straight to gully. Only one other batsman, the SouthAfrican Jimmy Cook, had suffered such immediate indignity in his firstTest.Garrick deserved sympathy. He was not in the original squad but wasrushed down to Kingston from his home in St Ann the day before andtold he was in the eleven.It was hardly proper preparation for the start of a Test career but itwas typical of how things are done in West Indies cricket these days.For instance, it was learnt, through the television coverage, thatRamnaresh Sarwan was carrying a stress fracture of the right femur andwould have to rest for at least four weeks. But, said Skerritt, it wasnot the reason he was omitted.By lunch, taken at 53 for three, the left-handers ShivnarineChanderpaul and Chris Gayle had also gone. Chanderpaul, nevercomfortable, presented Boucher with his first catch from an edgeddefensive push at Jacques Kallis.Gayle sliced his loose backfoot shot to gully, a carbon copy of hisdismissal in the previous Test and another dismissal worthy of a heftyfine.When Marlon Samuels was Donald’s third victim in the first over afterlunch, fending leaden-footed at a fast ball that held its line, Laraand Hooper came together. It appeared to be the West Indies’ last hopeof revival.Hooper let them down but Lara responded to his dismissal by takingcontrol.He was 35, off 92 balls with four fours, when his captain departed. Heaccelerated with thrilling drives, cuts and pulls so that he added 46off 64 balls with eight more fours before Pollock dismissed him.Lara’s only problems were caused by the bouncer. He took blows fromboth Donald and Pollock and, caught in two minds to another shortlifter from Pollock, he fended a catch to slip off the back of thebat.The last time Dillon and Ramnarine were together they had littleintention of batting. This time they played with spirit to frustratethe South Africans.Dillon spent over two hours, adding 54 with Lara and 21 withRamnarine, before Donald dispatched him with the second ball with thesecond new ball.But Ramnarine was there at the end with his highest Test score, 26,from the last two wickets and Courtney Walsh is still in.