Tony Becca
THREE OF the four Test matches between West Indies and India have now been played and instead of the Windies being three or two or one down as many expected, the score is locked at 0-0 with the final Test starting at Sabina Park on Friday.
After losing the toss, batting second and hanging on to draw the first and second Test matches, the West Indies won the toss in the third, batted first, piled up 581, and although the Test match ended in a stalemate, with India at one stage losing three wickets for two runs and dropping from 157 for two to 159 for five in the first innings, they scared the daylights out of India - at least for a while.
FIGHT FOR SURVIVAL
With India set 392 to win off 88 overs on the last day and finishing on 298 for four after 85 overs, they were not, unlike West Indies in Tests number one and two, hanging on and fighting for survival at the end. In fact, with the hard-hitting wicketkeeper/batsman Mahendra Dhoni promoted to number five and joining the action at 243 for three off 63.1 overs ahead of Yuvraj Singh and Mohammed Kaif, India were so safe that they even thought of going for victory at one stage.
The question, however, is this: Did the West Indies make it easy for India to draw the match?
Apart from the go-slow when, with Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Marlon Samuels batting, with both batsmen in the 60s, and the scoreboard reading 516 for the loss of five wickets, the West Indies scored a mere 20 runs off 14 overs before lunch on the third day, the answer seems to be yes.
After dismissing India for 362 with four sessions to go, the West Indies could have and probably should have enforced the follow-on - and they should have for the simple reason that they were in a position where, regardless of what India did in their second innings, with the West Indies boasting a lead of 219 runs with only four sessions remaining, they could not have lost the match.
It was a case where India would have had enough time to knock off the deficit, put some runs on the board, declared their second innings closed and, with Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh in their line-up, run through the West Indies batting on a wearing pitch.
It would have been something phenomenal had India, was the follow-on enforced, knocked off the 219-run deficit, scored enough runs to declare and then bowled out West Indies - all that in four sessions.
According to captain Brian Lara, his pace bowlers had to win the match, a couple of them were suffering from niggling injuries, he had to protect them, and that may well be true.
The fact, however, is that it was a Test match - the highest form of cricket in the world, the bowlers are professionals, India's first innings had lasted from one day to another, the West Indies bowlers had bowled 46 overs on one afternoon and 61 the following day, there were 26 overs remaining for the day, there was a night to rest before the final day and three before the next Test match, and in Pedro Collins, Jerome Taylor, Corey Collymore, Dwayne Bravo, Chris Gayle, Samuels and Ramnaresh Sarwan, the West Indies attack boasted four pacers and, according to the selectors, three spin bowlers.
The fact is that although Gayle dropped Virender Sehwag in the fourth over of India's second innings, it was always going to be difficult for this West Indies team with its present bowling attack to dismiss this Indian team in 88 overs, and based on the batting of this Indian team and the bowling of this West Indies team, Lara could not have declared overnight - not unless he had lost his senses.
TOOK A CHANCE
In fact, in giving them an entire day's play less two overs, with India at one stage looking 149 to win off 25 overs with seven wickets in hand, Lara, after escaping in the first two Test matches, took a chance and could easily have been now one down with one to go.
With the day's play starting 30 minutes early, an overnight declaration would have left India to score 332 off about 114 overs to win the match, and all things being equal, that would have been easy pickings for Wasim Jaffer, Sehwag, V.V.S. Laxman, Rahul Dravid, Yuvraj Singh, Kaif and Dhoni.
The West Indies best chance of winning the game, probably their only chance of winning the game was to enforce the follow-on. One never knows, but two or three wickets on that fourth afternoon may have turned the Windies pacers into demons on the final morning and instead of coming to Kingston all square at 0-0, the home team could well have been one up with one to go.
