Basseterre (St Kitts), June 25 (IANS) The West Indies were all out for 581, 40 minutes after lunch on the third day of the third Test against India at the Warner Park Stadium here Saturday.
Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Marlon Samuels, the overnight West Indian batsmen, took the score from 420 for 5 to 536, without getting separated in 37 overs in the 150-minute opening session.
The pitch was flat, the bowling ineffective and yet, after getting set right on top of the bowling, the batsmen managed only 20 runs in the 14 overs immediately before lunch.
After the break, the action became hectic, as if to compensate for the morning's drudgery. Harbhajan's first over, the second after lunch, went for 19. By the time West Indies added another 19, they were all out.
In a match, which the West Indies seemed content to let drift into a draw, statistics will remain its only noteworthy features.
Chanderpaul was left stranded on 97, three short of his sixth Test hundred against India, and Harbhajan finished with a five-wicket haul, the 18th of his career and fourth against the West Indies.
It was difficult to understand the West Indian strategy in the morning. At 420 for 5, and with two sessions of the match already wasted due to bad weather, they had to force the pace, score quickly so that they would have the time to bowl out India twice.
It was exactly the situation West Indian skipper Brian Lara had said he wanted to be in during his pre-match talk with newsmen.
But there was no sense of urgency or purpose to the way Chanderpaul and Samuels batted. They did not seem to be part of a team, which was thinking of winning.
Perhaps Lara was keener on sending a message to his selectors: If you do not give me the bowling which I think I can get India out twice, I can only play to save the match.
Or perhaps it was his unspoken comment on the lifeless track, when all along he has been asking for pitches with pace and bounce.
In the morning, after Indian skipper Rahul Dravid's early efforts to get a wicket were easily nullified, Chanderpaul and Samuels did step up the pace a bit: 55 runs came in the middle third of the session, in just 12 overs.
The next 14 overs, saw Chanderpaul score only 11 runs, Samuels 8.
Dravid, by this time, was setting purely defensive fields, and his bowlers were concentrating on a containing line but that was no explanation for the attitude of the batsmen. It did nothing for the image of Test cricket.
There have not been too many people watching the Tests, in sharp contrast to the crowds during the one-day series. The sort of unattractive and purposeless cricket as seen Saturday morning will do little to bring the crowds back.
SCOREBOARD
Day 3, Third Test, West Indies v India, Warner Park Stadium, Basseterre (St Kitts)
West Indies (1st Innings):
Chris Gayle b Patel 83
Darren Ganga b Patel 135
Ramnaresh Sarwan lbw Sreesanth 116
Brian Lara lbw Patel 10
Shivnarine Chanderpaul not out 97
Dwayne Bravo c Dhoni b Harbhajan 21
Marlon Samuels c Harbhajan Sehwag 87
Denesh Ramdin c Jaffer b Harbhajan 3
Jerome Taylor c Yuvraj b Harbhajan 2
Pedro Collins c Dravid b Harbhajan 1
Corey Collymore b Harbhajan 0
Extras (lb 14, w 1, nb 11) 26
Total (all out in 170 overs) 581
Fall of wickets: 1-143, 2-346, 3-356, 4-371, 5-406, 6-562, 7-570, 8-576, 9-581, 10-581
Bowling:
Munaf Patel 32-4-134-3 (8nb, 1w)
S. Sreesanth 31-8-99-1 (1nb)
Anil Kumble 47-8-140-0 (2nb)
Harbhajan Singh 44-6-147-5
Virender Sehwag 16-3-47-1
© 2006 Indo-Asian News Service | 
