I was wrong again: West Indies revival puts Australia under pump

West Indies 451 and 0/23 (4 ov) lead Australia 438 (131.1 ov, S Watson 96, S Katich 80,M Clarke 71, B Haddin 55*, S Benn 5/155) by 35 runs with 10 second innings wickets in hand: T2 D3 at Adelaide Oval.

From the second ball of the day, with which Sulieman Benn bowled Shane Watson for his overnight 96/148b (16x4) Australia moved towards the 451 required for a first innings lead. On the evidence of D2 and T1 I, like others including coach Tim Nielsen (who'd talked up the chances of an innings victory) expected them to achieve this goal comfortably.

But it didn't happen. The West Indies attack, the sharp edge of which consisted of Sulieman Benn (5/155) and Kemar Roach (3/93), kept sufficient pressure on to prevent a major partnership from developing and, crucially, induced several well set batsmen, notably Simon Katich (80) , Ricky Ponting (36) and Michael Clarke (71) into error while making Michael Hussey (41) look out of touch.

The consequences? For Australia, no century maker, a small first innings deficit and a sense of deflation after the euphoria (hubris?) of D2 and T1. For the West Indies, renewed confidence in their abilities and, as the 0/23 comfortably taken from the day's final four overs suggested, perhaps a sense of possibility. There are two days to go, and the latest weather forecast includes rain late tomorrow and on Tuesday, so a draw now looks more possible. To my mind the major problem facing the Windies is whether their attack is strong enough to dismiss Australia a second time. Benn (53 overs) and Roach (25.1) will be sore tonight after their efforts. It will be hard though not impossible (apart from expecting Benn to wheel off anything like another 53 overs) for them to repeat their efforts in Australia's second innings but they will need more support, if only in the form of consistent line and length, from the other bowlers.

Elsewhere, at Mumbai India completed their trouncing of Sri Lanka and moved to no1 in the world Test rankings , while at Wellington Pakistan levelled the series by defeating New Zealand

West Indies post competitive total which Australia is chasing energetically

Australia 0/174 (48 ov, S Watson 96*, S Katich 71*) trail West Indies 451 (124.1 ov, D Bravo 101, B Nash 92, S Chanderpaul 62) by 277 runs with 10 1st inns wkts in hand: T2 D2 at Adelaide Oval

D2's play produced four wickets (all West Indian) for 285 runs. Brendan Nash batted determinedly for 92/178b (12x4) and with Ravi Rampaul's exuberant 40*/66b (2x6, 6x4) added 68 for the last wicket. Nash was unlucky not to register a century though he might have been a little more positive against Nathan Hauritz, who bowled several maiden overs to him while Rampaul was making hay in the sunshine of a benign pitch and Australian bowling which rarely threatened. At least he had the senses to give Rampaul his head and as much of the strike as possible.

451 looked a competitive total. That is until the considerable limitations of the West Indian attack were exposed by Shane Watson 96*/146 b (16x4) and Simon Katich 71*/148b (1x6, 4x4). Sulieman Benn's left arm spin was most successful in restraining the Australians: the others struggled to extract life from the pitch and, sometimes, for accuracy.

This match will certainly go for more than three days (and it's unlikely to be interrupted by the weather), and at present it looks as if Australia will at least match if not comfortably exceed the West Indies first innings score. We should know by this time tomorrow.

Elsewhere New Zealand require another 337 runs to beat Pakistan with 7 wkts in hand at Wellington while at Mumbai Sri Lanka are in trouble: they need 59 runs with 4 second innings wickets in hand to make India bat again.

Aust win easily, NZ less so

At the Gabba Australia easily defeated the West Indies in three days by an innings and 80 runs: 8/480 dec to 228 and 187. For the visitors only the little known debutant Adrian Barath enhanced his reputation with 104/138b (19x4) in the disappointing follow on.

The Australians, Shane Watson with the bat excepted, batted and bowled well (Watson redeemed himself with the ball) and Ricky Ponting led the team well. His declaration and enforcement of the follow on were bolder moves than we normally expect from him, but the result confirmed the accuracy and shrewdness of his assessment.

What can the West Indies do to improve? For starters (Barath excepted), bat better. Shivnarine Chanderpaul's brace of 2s was well below par while many (including me) will be hoping that Ramnaresh Sarwan will be fit for T2. And then? Field and bowl better. Stating the obvious? Yes, but after watching a fair amount of Windies Test cricket on TV in the last year or so, I'm modestly confident that this result will sting the present team's collective pride sufficently to produce a more resolute performance here in Adelaide.


At Dunedin New Zealand 429 and 153 defeated Pakistan 332 and 218 by 32 runs in a match which lasted, with some weather interruptions, for almost five full days. I didn't get to see any of the last day's play live, and Foxtel didn't show any highlights, which was a pity given the closeness of the contest. I wonder however to what extent this match, played in southerly Dunedin, and the rest of the three match series, scheduled for small grounds, will provide good preparation for Pakistan's tour of Australia. Are good pitches at Wellington and Napier and reasonable weather too much to hope for?

Testfest: India win, Australia gain upper hand, Pakistan regroup

At Kanpur India completed an emphatic victory over Sri Lanka

At the Gabba on D2 the natural order of 2000s Test cricket things was restored as Australia pulled ahead by batting on to 8/480 dec and then taking five West Indies wickets for only 134.

At Dunedin on D4 Pakistan fought back against NZ with the ball to leave the match tantalisingly poised.

PS In Hobart the Tasmania v South Australia Sheffield Shield match was drawn after rain intervened.

Big day for long form cricket

Today three Tests are being played around the globe: Australia v West Indies T1 D1 at the Gabba, New Zealand v Pakistan T1 D3 at Dunedin and India v Sri Lanka T2 D3 at Kanpur.

Not bad for a format that's frequently written down, if not out. Or are the time and scheduling demands (think 7 match ODI series) of the shorter forms such that much of the Test schedule has to be shoehorned into an ultratight time frame?

At Kanpur, India (642, inc centuries to Gambhir, Sehwag and Dravid, 60s to Laxman and Yuvraj ) have enforced the follow on against Sri Lanka (229) so a win is possible there. As I post play on D3 is still in progress.

At a cool and sporadically wet Dunedin New Zealand have, after losing a wicket to the first ball of the match, held the initiative though whether the two days remaining are enough to force a result is questionable.

Foxtel is showing the Dunedin game live, though there's no coverage as far as I can tell (even on Fox Sports News) from Kanpur.

On Australian free to air TV the Channel 9 coverage (both HD and SD picture quality far superior to Foxtel's SD), Richie Benaud and co plus some new features, eg live feeds of players' heart rates, has held my attention apart from a few shifts to bucolic Dunedin.

As it's turned out the widely predicted Australian walkover hasn't yet manifested itself. 5/322 (Katich 92, Hussey 66, Ponting 55) isn't a bad total, yet every time Australia seemed to be getting on top a wicket fell to the persistent West Indies attack.

Of course with Ramnaresh Sarwan out of the Windies batting lineup this may turn out to be a winning score.

PS Another long form game, the 4 day Tasmania v South Australia Sheffield Shield match at Hobart is also being played (though pretty much ignored by the mainstream media). The home team gained first innings points: 389 (thanks to Ed Cowan's 225) to 363, but is wobbling at 3/39 in its second innings. Peter George's 10 wickets to date have kept the Redbacks in with a sniff of outright victory but with only a day to play on the Bellerive wicket this may be hard to achieve.

Exhibition T20 match belated reminder of cricket season

The televising of the exhibition T20 game from the Gabba on Channel 9 was a belated reminder to Australian cricket followers who aren't pay TV subscribers that the local season is underway.

The match itself appeared to attract a reasonable, though well short of capacity, crowd to the ground. This was probably due more to the presence of some recently retired greats than to any resurgence of interest in the game (though Shane Warne batting himself at no11 indicated that it wasn't being played for sheep stations).


How attractive the Tests against the West Indies and then Pakistan will be remains to be seen. A related question is whether the decline of Test cricket elsewhere, as manifested by minute crowd numbers and diminishing TV audiences, will continue here. I expect that it will, at least for this season when neither of the touring teams have much Test match crowd pulling potential. Without abandoning my preference for the long form of the game I hope that the ODIs, where over and fielding restrictions even things up a bit, continue to pull in reasonable numbers of spectators and viewers. I'll certainly be glued to the TV this and at the Adelaide Oval next week.

Cricket catchup

Have returned home after a few weeks away visiting family. Didn't get to see much cricket except for a snippet or two of highlights on TV, so have been catching up since my return.

Jet lag recovery enabled me to watch some India - Aust ODIs in real time, including nos 5 ( masterly Tedulkar innings not enough- just - to deny Aust) and 6 (Aust demolishing Indian top order early).

For details of the 7 match series (which a progressively injury riddled Aust won 4-2) see here .

Since I returned it's been hot - correction very hot - so didn't get to see as much of the SA - Qld Sheffield Shield match as I'd have tried to do in more moderate conditions.

I did spend, with a handful of other spectators, a little time at the Oval on the last day when SA wasn't able to convert its comfortable first innings lead to an outright victory. There didn't seem to be a lot of energy in either side's play. This was understandable to some extent after four high 30degC days, yet disappointing that the Redbacks didn't attack more, especially when it was clear early on that the Bulls weren't going to go hard for victory.

Scorecard .

Both sides are going to play a 50 overs game at Alice Springs on Saturday: no respite from the heat there!.