THE WEST Indies made a very encouraging start and had it not been for rain, were in with a good chance of winning the first match in the four-Test rubber against England at Lord's.
Without anyone hitting a century and the English team five - some gifted through fielding too bad to call poor - the Caribbean team was able to post a good Test score of 437 in response to the host country's mammoth first innings target of 553 for five declared, then looked well set to launch a serious challenge on the final day, with the Windies needing 394 from a maximum 98 overs.
They had started the previous evening and wiped off seven runs while chasing an overall target of 401 for victory, and ended at 89 without loss of a cumulative 22 overs - 312 short and 68 overs washed away.
Not easy targets
Chasing targets of this magnitude is never easy as it necessitates more risks to sustain scoring at an above-average rate.
It is interesting to note, though, that the highest score made for victory when batting last at Lord's was the 344 for one made by the West Indies in 1984. Also, four years ago, the West Indies successfully chased 418 while losing seven wickets batting last against Australia at the Antigua Recreating Ground in May 2003, scoring 371 on the final day with Ramnaresh Sarwan and Shivnarine Chanderpaul both striking centuries
In spite of this, the target appeared quite achievable when taking several other factors into consideration. Chief among them is that without really stepping on the accelerator, the West Indies had managed to score 363 while losing seven wickets in 98 overs on day three of its first innings reply of this Lord's Test.
Its fastest accumulator of runs, Chris Gayle, made 30, but more importantly, lasted only 39 balls in 50 minutes.
With the exception of Runako Morton (14 off 22 balls) and Devon Smith (21 off 39) to a lesser extent, all the batsmen in the West Indies' top order negotiated the most difficult period of their innings - the start - and were set when dismissed for noteworthy contributions.
Gayle's opening partner Daren Ganga soaked up 131 balls for his 49 runs, captain Sarwan (36), Chanderpaul (74), Dwayne Bravo (56) and wicketkeeper Denesh Ramdin (60).
In a chase of this sort, these are the people that the West Indies would depend on for the bulk, if not all the runs because once the tail gets into the mix. then it means you're in trouble.
Other factors that weighed in favour of the Windies had everything to do with England's bowling. They were a man short in Matthew Hoggard, whose injury - picked up while bowling on the third day - had limited the England attack in a big way. Of the England fast bowlers, Hoggard appeared the biggest threat with his ability to move the ball in and away from the batsmen and the fact that he was exercising more control than any other prior to his injury, sending down 10.1 overs for 29 runs at an average of 2.85 runs per over.
He was bowling far better than his team's strike bowler, Steve Harmison, who has had a most wretched 'year-off' with the ball, stretching back to the Ashes series against Australia where his first delivery was taken by the man at second slip.
Hoping for transformation
His only wicket in the match was that of number 10 batter Jerome Taylor Harmison conceded only 21 runs off eight overs in the much-abbreviated second innings, he never improved as a threat and England must be hoping he makes a huge transformation in the upcoming matches.
Liam Plunkett grabbed two first innings wickets for 107, but continued up to the end of the game to be just decent.
Then there was spinner Monty Panesar,the first innings destroyer with six for 129 off 36.1 overs, whom the English selectors almost never played. In the limited time that he bowled, Gayle - against whom he had a big advantage with four rough patches in front of the batsman - and Ganga never had any problems and had the rain stayed away, the West Indies would have had a good chance to prop up its very encouraging beginning.
