South Africans go one-up

JOHANNESBURG: A defiant innings of 74 by Shivnarine Chanderpaul was the only consolation for the West Indies as South Africa’s pace attack completed the demolition job on the visitors, dismissing them for 188 midway into the afternoon session on the final day yesterday to win the first cricket Test by 189 runs. Former captain Shaun Pollock, severely chastised in the media for a costly dropped catch in the first innings that allowed Brian Lara to complete a double-century, made amends in the final push for victory by claiming the prized scalp of the West Indies captain inside the first hour when he dragged an attempted forcing off-side shot onto his stumps. Pollock had earlier trapped the other overnight batsman, Ramnaresh Sarwan, the West Indies vice-captain, leg before wicket and returned in the post-lunch session to remove Chanderpaul and ending the match by having Corey Collymore also LBW to finish with four for 31.

His final scalp denied Makhaya Ntini a chance to complete a 10-wicket match haul as the fiery fast bowler could only add Mervyn Dillon to his list of victims after claiming three wickets late on the fourth evening to effectively wreck any real chance the visitors had of challenging a target of 378. Ntini’s haul of nine wickets in the match was enough to earn him the “Man-of-the-Match” award, however. Andre Nel picked up the other two wickets, halting the only period of significant resistance by bowling Ridley Jacobs for 25 in the third over of the afternoon to end an entertaining sixth-wicket partnership of 98 with Chanderpaul. The stand surpassed the 92 put on by Sarwan and then captain Carl Hooper at the Queen’s Park Oval in 2001 as the West Indies record for the wicket against South Africa.

Nel then took a hammering from Chris Gayle, conceding four consecutive boundaries in one over and another two in subsequent overs before the injured Jamaican left-hander edged another big drive to the wicketkeeper. The ultra-aggressive fast bowler’s reaction to the dismissal, sticking his tongue out in the face of the departing batsman, earned him a reprimand from the match referee Ranjan Madugalle. Lara revealed after the match that Gayle has been diagnosed with a grade one tear of the left hamstring and is questionable for the Second Test, starting on Boxing Day, December 26, in Durban. Before that, West Indies travel to East London to take on Border in a four-day fixture from Friday with all five players who did not feature in the First Test — Ravi Rampaul, Carlton Baugh Jr, Dave Mohammed, Dwayne Smith and Adam Sanford — expected to play. The injury to Gayle on the first afternoon at the new Wanderers Stadium, Lara contended, was critical to the team’s chances in the match.

“I think we didn’t really play with a full 11 in this match,” he explained in the post-match press conference, alluding to injuries to Gayle and Collymore. “This actually augurs well for the future, because if you do get a fit 11 on the field for five days, then it means that we will play better.” Lara’s South African counterpart, Graeme Smith, suggested that his team’s performance on the first day, when they raced to 368 for three, made the difference in the match, despite concerns about the nature of the pitch on the final day and the greater resistance of the West Indies from the second day onwards. Another disappointing crowd on a public holiday might have been concerned about the prospect of another monumental innings from the master left-hander, but with his dismissal for just five, it was left to Chanderpaul to put smiles on West Indian faces. Chanderpaul batted with conviction and confidence, counter-attacking brilliantly in the hour to lunch when he and Jacobs caught the South Africans unawares. Chanderpaul brought up his 29th half-century in Test cricket off just 63 balls with nine fours, and seemed destined to convert it into a ninth hundred until he swung a delivery from Pollock into Nel’s lap at long-leg. Jacobs had already departed by then and it was only a matter of time thereafter before the final rites were performed on the West Indies’ 26th defeat in 35 Test matches away from home since the tour of Pakistan six years ago. It will take more than pockets of resistance and occasional individual brilliance to redress that depressing statistic.