Windies (144/4) face big uphill task

On the evidence so far of this warm-up fixture, the Windies are in danger of putting up even less of a fight in the back-to-back final Tests against Australia in Hobart and Adelaide than they showed in the opening Test last week in Brisbane, which the home team won by the resounding margin of 379 runs.

Nothing typified the infuriating mixture of sublime talent and gross negligence better on day two than Marlon Samuels’ innings.

Playing with the eye-catching elegance and supreme authority he displayed in compiling 257 against the Queensland Bulls two weeks earlier at Allan Border Field, Samuels raced to 50 by hoisting leg-spinning all-rounder Cameron White for his second six over extra-cover to reach the milestone.

Yet it was the Bushrangers’ captain who had the last laugh when the right-hander attempted to repeat the shot in the same over and Mick Lewis held a good catch running in off the cover boundary. As with much of the West Indies experience over the past decade, they have occasionally flirted with almost incomparable brilliance yet have generally fell well short of the required standard because of inconsistency, lack of commitment and, significantly, the failure to appreciate the circumstances or contexts of their performances.

Shivnarine Chanderpaul, who looks an increasingly disenchanted and distant captain, was left to ensure there were no more setbacks for his team in partnership with Dwayne Smith before bad light and then steady rain brought a halt to the day’s play 45 minutes before the scheduled close.

The fifth-wicket pair were set to resume this morning (Saturday night, Caribbean time) and face an uphill task just to avoid the humiliating prospect of being asked to follow-on.

With Victorian coach Greg Shipperd keen to turn the screws on the visitors after they spurned his offer for both sides to limit their first innings to 45 overs each for the sake of producing a result, the home team were expected to make every effort to compound the West Indies woes by forcing them to struggle for survival on a pitch that, perversely, could not have been better for batting.

Samuels’ departure for an even 50 off 53 balls with five fours and two sixes in 80 minutes may have been the most galling, but the three wickets that fell before him also bore traces of recklessness in varying degrees.

Starting their reply 40 minutes into the afternoon session, Chris Gayle looked completely out of sorts, being dropped at first slip off Lewis when on one and then playing an ugly one-handed swish at Allan Wise on 17 to give wicketkeeper Adam Crosthwaite a straightforward catch.

Lewis then snared Ramnaresh Sarwan for just ten when the vice-captain cut the medium-fast bowler unerringly to Michael Klinger at gully to reduce the West Indies to 53 for two just before tea. Klinger was again in action almost immediately after the interval, diving goalkeeper-style to his left to pull in another catch two-handed when Devon Smith, who looked in control in reaching 34, sliced a drive off Peter Siddle also to gully, giving the debutant seamer his first first-class wicket less than two weeks before his 21st birthday.

From the discomfort of 68 for three, Samuels dominated a 63-run fourth-wicket partnership with Chanderpaul only to squander the platform for another significant innings.

Thrashed to all parts of the ground on Friday, the West Indies had earlier bowled with considerably more control and purpose on the second morning, claiming the last six Victorian wickets for 89 runs with the two Dwaynes - Smith and Bravo - taking the honours ahead of their fast bowling teammates.

Smith finished with three for 50 and Bravo two for 86, although more errors in the field tarnished the performance.

With the second new ball taken immediately, David Hussey, 91 not out overnight, should have departed in the first over of the morning but Gayle put down the chance at first slip when the right-hander drove at Fidel Edwards. Hussey soon became the second centurion of the innings after Brad Hodge’s 177 on the opening day, reaching the landmark in 133 minutes off 102 balls with five fours and four sixes.

He was then promptly run out by Edwards for 104 in a mix-up with White and the dismissal broke a 131-run fifth-wicket partnership, opening the door for the West Indies to work through the rest of the Bushrangers’ order.

White, who got to 63, and Jonathan Moss both fell to wicketkeeper’s catches off Bravo and the all-rounder should have claimed a third wicket but Sarwan let off Lewis at short midwicket.

Smith then claimed the last three wickets, Lewis lofting a catch to Chanderpaul at mid-off, Siddle miscuing an attempted pull to be caught-and-bowled, and Crosthwaite being superbly caught by substitute fielder Daren Powell running in and diving forward from the long-off boundary.

It was an effort by the fast bowler that should have embarrassed Tino Best, who let a firm drive by the wicketkeeper-batsman burst through his fingers at mid-on off Smith earlier in his innings.