SAEED?AJMAL, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Devendra Bishoo and later Ravi Rampaul and Kemar Roach made the third day of this first Digicel Test cricket match a gripping one for the largest crowd of the game.
But Pakistan captain Misbah ul-Haq’s unbroken 78-run fourth-wicket partnership with Asad Shafiq (40, six fours) could hold the key to the outcome of this contest at the Guyana National Stadium.
Thrown together in the Rampaul/Roach-induced chaos of three for two, the pair fought through the fire to take their team to 80 for three when bad light ended play.
Pakistan, set 219 for victory, need 139 more to win this opener. But nothing can be taken for granted.
Misbah (34 not out) certainly appreciates that, given the state of the game when he got to the crease yesterday. Rampaul and Roach had Providence jumping with three wickets in 12 balls as Pakistan began their chase.
Rampaul was irresistible. Good length deliveries defeated Taufeeq Umar, lbw to one that straightened, which he missed. That was Rampaul’s third ball, second over of the innings.
Next man Azhar Ali barely missed the first ball he faced but touched the second to wicketkeeper Carlton Baugh.
Two balls into the next over, the Windies’ success with the umpire decision review system (UDRS) continued when Roach won an lbw verdict against Mohammad Hafeez.
Rampaul should have landed another body blow first ball of his next over when Shafiq touched a ball around off stump to Darren Bravo at third slip. Bravo had to move to his right, and the ball spilled from his grasp.
Flat on his belly he stayed for a few seconds, dismayed by his slip. His discomfort would have eased none by the close, with the stocky Shafiq still aiding with the fightback. That incident was one of many that set tongues wagging on a day when Ajmal’s spinning fingers caused havoc again.
He ended the hosts’ innings with figures of six for 42 to give him 11 in the match, as West Indies went down for 152. But the travails of Darren Sammy’s men would have been much worse had it not been for Chanderpaul and Bishoo.
The last pair produced the largest partnership of the innings – 48 – to keep West Indian hope alive after the crowd had witnessed batsmen steadily getting their marching orders.
The quick demise of nightwatchman Roach, lbw to Ajmal, began the procession.
By lunch the innings was in a tailspin, Lendl Simmons (21), Ramnaresh Sarwan (11), Brendan Nash (three) and the rash Baugh (seven) all failing to stop the rot.
It was like watching a car crash in slow motion. Batsmen merely survived until they were inevitably dismissed; noone finding a way to counterattack the spin threat.
The break gave the Windies respite at 96 for seven. But it was not too long before the two homeboys mounted the last stand.
Chanderpaul, well acquainted with desperate times, found in newcomer Bishoo a partner with the temperament for this latest crisis.
The senior man, never one to shield a junior partner, left Bishoo to fend for himself against Ajmal. But little Bishoo plays his cricket without fuss. And as in the first innings when he got an unbeaten 15, he watched the spin carefully and played with a straight bat and “soft” hands.
It was perhaps the reason he escaped the leg-before-wicket fate of some ahead of him and why he avoided the close fielders for so long. Like everyone else yesterday, he had his close calls.
Bishoo edged off-spinner Hafeez past skipper Misbah at slip, survived a review for an appeal for a catch to slip off Ajmal and was dropped at first slip by Hafeez off the left-arm seamer’s first ball of a new spell.
But coming to the crease at 104 for nine and the West Indies’ lead 170, he stuck around for an hour and 34 minutes, in which time he got 24 of the last-wicket stand. Those runs were probably worth double the actual sum on this pitch of variable bounce where batsmen have been so unproductive. That tenth wicket effort probably should have produced more. But Chanderpaul has always batted to his own rhythm, even though the team needed more enterprise from their most skilled operator.
Chanderpaul had his struggles. Ajmal was a menace with straightening deliveries and disconcerting bounce that accounted for Sarwan, who fended to forward short-leg (59 for five). He drew Chanderpaul forward and caught the outside edge with an off-break, only for the chance to be missed at second slip when the batsman was just two.
And on seven, Chanderpaul got the benefit of the doubt from TV umpire Asoka da Silva when umpire Billy Bowden called for a ruling on a runout appeal. Chanderpaul’s bat appeared to be on the line at best when the ball from a close-in fielder struck the stumps after the batsman had wandered from his crease having missed an Ajmal delivery.
The ball beat the bat often yesterday.
But the West Indies’ “Tiger” can wound you if you don’t kill him off. He kept going for three and a half hours for his 36 without a boundary yesterday until, on the brink of tea, Bishoo finally succumbed, edging a drive at Ajmal into Umar Akmal’s hands at slip.
That completed the “six-for” for the off-spinner, who bowled all but five balls in one spell. He has been brilliant, his beaming face at Bishoo’s fall telling its own story. But little Bishoo has the chance to laugh last today.
