Aussies v. Windies - Third Test

[Donny]

Here's a couple of quotes which summed up many cricket followers' thoughts, not only Aussies:

"When Brian Lara won the toss and decided to bowl first on a flat, grassless pitch, there was a stunned silence in our changing room." - Justin Langer

"We were surprised to get sent in and we have capitalised. There's no grass on it. It's a bit like a one-day pitch. These have been some of the easiest pitches I have batted on in my Test career. There's very little bounce and the pace has been very even every time. - Ricky Ponting

[Donny]

News at the start of the third day is not good for the West Indies.

Brian Lara has contracted chicken pox and, at this stage, it's not known whether he'll take further part in this Test.

[Donny]

After 50 overs, the Windies are 2/143. Gayle made 71 and Smith, 59. Gillespie has the two wickets.

[Donny]

Dizzy has bowled 12 overs for the excellent return of 2/18.

2/149 at lunch.

[HAL]

[Donny]

When you're having a problem getting a wicket, try something different!

Ganga and Sarwan were looking fairly safe so Waugh tossed the ball to Lehmann.

A rank full toss was hit straight to Bichel at mid on and Boof was smiling. He had a few mates !!

Next over, Chanderpaul got a long hop from MacGill and smashed it into the deep. Caught by Lee !! An excellent catch.

Lee and Gillespie each took a wicket with the new ball and the Windies were 6 down. Dizzy has 3/31.

Lara is crook but he's out there. After 100 overs, the Windies are 6/270.

[couragous cloke]

omg lara got enough wood on that too build a billy cart for F*** sake! i hope we bat again 2nit.

[JLC]

from the age website

Slow death of a fast art
May 4 2003

Former West Indies fast bowlers are mourning the passing of a tradition, reports Trevor Marshallsea.

Once they were kings and ruled world cricket with an awesome force of fast bowling, pushing the West Indies to a seemingly impregnable position at the top of the game for two decades.

Malcolm Marshall, Michael Holding, Andy Roberts, Joel Garner and Colin Croft were names whose mere mention could stiffen the muscles of batsmen the world over.

From soon after Roberts' arrival in 1973-74 to Marshall's retirement in 1991, the beat of world cricket was set by the West Indies' quicks.

Between them, Roberts, Holding, Garner, Marshall and Croft took 1211 Test wickets at a superb combined average of 22.5 runs apiece. Marshall, who died in 1999 of colon cancer, led the pack with 376 scalps.

Now, Marshall's colleagues are left looking on in frustration at the crumbled remains of their empire.

Though Courtney Walsh and Curtly Ambrose, who claimed 924 wickets between them, kept the West Indies at the top of the game until the mid-1990s, what is left now is an embarrassingly poor imitation of the Caribbean attacks of the past.

A long line of pretenders to the pace throne have come and gone. Who remembers Ottis Gibson, Patterson Thompson, Cameron Cuffy, Marlon Black, Adam Sanford, Nixon McLean, Franklyn Rose and Reon King? They are the eight Windies pacemen who have had short-lived Test careers since 1994-95, the season it all came crashing down with a home series defeat to Mark Taylor's Australians.

The retired greats share a common grief over the current state of West Indian cricket.

"I can't really explain it to you. I can't put it into words," said Roberts, 52. "It grieves me to see the decline in West Indian cricket, and West Indian pride.

"Our administrators must take a lot of the blame. We're not going to get out of this problem through them. Fast bowling has declined tremendously, but it didn't start yesterday, or last week - it started seven years ago.

"We had Walsh and Ambrose leading the way, but apart from them, the decline had started and no one was paying any notice. When they left, the guys thrown into the team had not been given an opportunity to develop."

Roberts also believes his generation loved cricket and was driven to succeed, but that attitudes had changed and youngsters these days were easily satisfied.

"We were 20 years ahead of our time with our fitness. Now the youngsters say they are training too hard. I think the players have to take 60 per cent of the blame for not developing themselves, and the administrators need to take 40 per cent of the blame."

Holding, 49, who is a television commentator, said West Indian cricket would simply have to wait for the next great fast bowler to appear, but says a bungling administration is not helping, and nor is a growing preference among Caribbean youth for computer games over cricket, and the trend of producing batsman-friendly pitches in the region.

"We used to have a lot of fast bowlers who could not get into the team that could've made other teams. Now it's the opposite - we have fast bowlers now who couldn't make other teams, but they are playing because there is no one else," said Holding.

"It does hurt me to see the state cricket is in here. It's very unfortunate. But it's not just the cricketers - it stems from the top . . . I don't think the West Indies Cricket Board is functioning properly, to help the cricketers.

"You don't have anywhere near as many kids playing cricket today as you had in the '50s, '60s, '70s or even the '80s. If you don't have as big a pool, obviously you're not going to find as great a talent as when you did."

Croft, who is an outspoken radio and newspaper commentator, offered a more desperate measure, citing the example of pre-teen tennis academies.

"The time is gone where the West Indies are going to have natural fast bowlers like Garner and Holding. They were the two most natural ones we had. The rest of us had to work at our game," said Croft.

"You've got to make things happen. OK, if you can't produce them naturally you've got to make them. Start when the kids are nine and 10, not 19. You've got to mould them in their youth.

"Not so long ago we had people like Franklyn Rose, Nixon McLean and Reon King as fast bowlers. Those names have disappeared, and that was only two or three years ago.

"Now we've got a new bunch. My problem is not whether they're good enough to play now, it's how long they're going to last. I don't know what the selectors are doing. They pick one guy this year and two years later he's disappeared. The problem is, we have been losing so much I don't think the younger players are even getting a chance to settle, to understand what it is to play Test cricket properly."

Garner, now an administrator with the Barbados National Sports Centre, was manager of the West Indies A tour to Canada and England last year, and was dismayed by an unprecedented level of indiscipline among the young squad.

Garner preferred not to speak about that matter, but when asked about the state of West Indies cricket, said: "It's painful, very, very painful, to watch. We have our problems and we have to work at getting them solved. I don't think that the players are prepared to work hard enough. They are content with mediocrity."

[HAL]

Do you believe in god?

[Donny]

At stumps, the Windies are 3/187 with Sarwan on 58 and Lara, 41. Lee has 2/38.

[HAL]

I see.

[couragous cloke]

big night 2int, go windies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[gobbles21]

These 2 both need to stick around, but the form lara is in, the windies might b able to draw this one. (might)

[Donny]

Mmmm. Well, that possibility went out the window pretty quickly.

MacGill's first (and first of the day) delivery saw Venkat's finger raised. He must have thought the ball hit Sarwan's pad on the full.

Another case for the use of the available technology. No umpire would give that out - bearing in mind it was a leggie bowling - if he saw it pitch and THEN hit the pad.

Umpires are humans, after all. They can only give it how they see it.

When Lehmann was given out on 96, lbw, it looked out. That is with the naked eye and at normal speed but in slo-mo there were clearly three reasons to give it not out. 1) Pitched outside leg. 2) Hit the pad outside off. 3) Putting the first two together, it also had to be also missing off stump.

The technology IS available and in the above mentioned cases, it would take less time to check with the 3rd. umpy than it does to check run outs, stumpings, close call boundaries and disputed catches. The 3rd. umpy replays are used for all of those.

Shortly after Sarwan's wicket, Lara went, lbw also but no complaints with this one. Bichel was the bowler.

After 84 overs, the Windies are 5/218.

[Donny]

At lunch, the Windies are 5/250 and only 27 runs behind. Looks like the Aussies will have to bat again.