Ganguly denies the West Indies
an innings victory

Day 4:

The West Indies fought back into the five-Test series against India, with a thumping 10-wicket victory in the third Test at the Kensington Oval, Barbados, to level the score one-all.

The defeat on the fourth afternoon should serve as a reminder to the Indians, who seemed complacent after the Port-of-Spain victory late last month. Coach John Wright’s prophetic words of India relaxing too much after a huge win were underlined as the team moves on to Antigua to play the fourth Test in four days time.

Morning session:

Overnight batsman VVS Laxman started the day with a flourish of boundaries off left-armer Pedro Collins. India had the option of springing another great comeback in Test history or salvage some pride by avoiding an innings defeat.

After Collins, who had been stung in the over by a silken back-foot square-cut to the fence, had Laxman edging to Hooper, at second slip, who took a sharp low catch, the writing was on the wall. India had only pride to play for in the Test.

At 183-5, the visitors had as good as lost the Test, still needing 109 runs to make the home team bat again.

Keeper Ajay Ratra found the fence and reached the highest score made by a keeper in the series; the earlier highest being 2 by Ratra himself.

Playing a defiant innings and supporting a rejuvenated Sourav Ganguly, the keeper played some bold shots and helped India pass the 200-run mark by pulling Adam Sanford to the mid-wicket fence.

Dillon, having picked up six wickets in the Test so far, increased his tally to seven when he had Ratra trapped in front with a delivery similar to the one that dismissed Sachin Tendulkar; it pitched outside and cut back back in viciously.

Harbhajan Singh joined Ganguly at the crease and played with restraint after having gifted his wicket away in the previous two Tests. The wily off-spinner had promised to cut out the pull shot from his cricketing vocabulary after having fallen to the shot on more than one occasion.

Cameron Cuffy, who was humiliated by Harbhajan Singh when he was the last West Indian wicket to fall in the first innings, bowled with venom at the young offie. Harbhajan had mocked at Cuffy when he had slipped while trying to regain his crease in the first innings.

Glares were exchanged between the two after every delivery, with Ganguly walking down the wicket to quell the fire. Cuffy though won the encounter when he had Harbhajan dragging the ball onto his stumps without moving his feet. Fuming at himself, Harbhajan walked back to the pavilion a wiser man with India at 211-7.

The match seemed to be petering towards a conclusion, as only bowlers Zaheer Khan, Javagal Srinath and Ashish Nehra were to follow. Zaheer Khan though had other ideas as he enjoyed a rollicking fifty-run stand with skipper Ganguly.

‘Operation Redemption’ was underway as Zaheer struck up a perfect balance of cautious aggression and watchful defence. He slashed hard at Dillon and Cuffy for boundaries over the slip cordon and then followed it up with a huge six over the mid-wicket fence off Adam Sanford. Ganguly had thumped Sanford to the point fence earlier in the over. Zaheer then pulled Sanford for a six and four in his next over. Fifty runs were scored in 51 deliveries, of which Zaheer had scored 33 himself.

Ganguly then cut Hooper, bowling his harmless off-spinners, to the fence to reach his second half-century of the series off 141 balls with six boundaries.

Despite a crushing defeat staring them in the face, India will take the biggest positive from the game with them -- the return to form of skipper Sourav Ganguly. Off the first ball of the next over bowled by part-time leggie Ramnaresh Sarwan, Zaheer, deceived by the low bounce, was caught behind for a 45-ball 46. India at 285-8 trailed by 7 runs as lunch was taken.

Post Lunch session:

Sarwan, resuming his over after lunch, struck immediately with Javagal Srinath edging to Chris Gayle at shortish gully for a first-ball duck. An innings defeat faced India as last man Ashish Nehra walked out to face the hat-trick ball from Sarwan.

Seeing the hat-trick ball off, Nehra slogged hard at Sarwan and ran three runs to reduce the deficit. Ganguly then picked up a couple of runs delaying the inevitable. Nehra hoicked Dillon up in the air and Pedro Collins, running towards the boundary, juggled but held onto the catch, and dismissing the Indians for 296 -- a lead of just four runs.

Dillon picked up eight for the Test and won the man-of-the-match award.

PS: India should come out with a lot of positives from the Test. Firstly, the return to form of skipper Sourav Ganguly, and secondly, the half-century from the blade of opener Wasim Jaffer.

Ganguly finding his touch on tour augurs well for a team with a tail that barely ever wags. And with Jaffer solving the team's opening woes, India now needs to gel the machinery together and come up with a creditable performance for the rest of the series.

Barring the first innings debacle here, which was the only batting collapse in the Test series so far, the Indian middle-order has meshed together partnerships and persevered to put up decent totals.

Scoreboard

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