West Indies v Sri Lanka, 2nd Test
Sarwan stands firm as Sri Lanka chip away

Trinidad—Each time West Indies or Sri Lanka have taken the upper hand in the second Test at the Queen’s Park Oval, the other has clawed back to bring the match into balance. That trend continued on the fourth day, which began with West Indies needing 253 runs to win, as Sri Lanka struck early by dismissing the openers before Ramnaresh Sarwan’s unbeaten 45 held the innings together.
At lunch, West Indies were 160 runs away from squaring the series while Sri Lanka needed seven wickets to record their first-ever series win in the Caribbean. They had their most experienced batsmen at the crease in Sarwan and Shivnarine Chanderpaul, while Sri Lanka were relying on veterans Chaminda Vaas and Muttiah Muralitharan to do the bulk of the bowling.
A target of 253 over two days with ten wickets in hand isn’t the most daunting but only twice have teams chased higher totals to win in Trinidad. Add to that the unpredictably of the West Indian batting order and the Murali-Vaas factor on a wearing pitch, and the chase becomes anything but simple.
The approach adopted by West Indies openers, Chris Gayle and Sewnarine Chattergoon reflected their uncertainty. Chattergoon, who had made a solid 46 in the first innings, chased anything wide from left-arm fast bowler Thilan Thushara. He managed to edge one just over Kumar Sangakkara’s head and played and missed often. Both batsmen tried to attack Thushara but they were circumspect against Vaas, who consistently seamed the ball past the left-handers’ outside edge from a consistent length.
West Indies lost their first wicket on 23 when Gayle tried to slog Thushara. The ball moved away from him, and the outside edge flew high in the air past point where Tillakaratne Dilshan ran backwards to take the catch. Chattergoon fell in the next over. He misjudged the line of a straighter one from Vaas and was trapped plumb in front.
At 24 for 2, the out-of-form Marlon Samuels joined Sarwan and the pair added 49 for the third wicket, although Samuels looked out of sorts. He moved too far across his stumps against Vaas and survived several lbw shouts when the ball swung back into him and hit his pads. He eventually spooned a slower one from Vaas to Malinda Warnapura at point.
Sarwan, on the other hand, had scored three half-centuries in the series and got going from the onset. He started by flicking and cutting Thushara to the boudnary and eventually hit him out of the attack by taking three fours - two straight drives and a leg glance - off his eighth over. Against Vaas, Sarwan stayed in his crease and gave himself as much time to drive the ball through the off side while his team-mates lunged on to the front foot. He was reprieved early in his innings by Dilshan, who missed the stumps at the non-striker’s end with Sarwan well short of his crease. Had he hit, one sensed that the chase would have been up, for apart from Sarwan’s fluent innings, the home batsmen looked edgy. Even Chanderpaul had testing moments against Vaas, who caught the left-hander by surprise with a couple of deliveries that reared sharply off a good length.
The key, however, will be how the batsmen perform against the sustained pressure from Murali at one end while Vaas pegs away at the other. Murali hasn’t taken a wicket yet but his probing line from round the wicket often had the batsmen in a spot of bother. Rain forced the players to take an early lunch but it did little to dampen the interest in what is a riveting Test match.
Summarized Scores: Lunch West Indies 294 and 93 for 3 (Sarwan 45*, Chanderpaul 13*, Vaas 2-33) need another 160 runs to beat Sri Lanka 278 and 268

—Agencies