THE audacious young men of West Indies cricket - and one not so young - continued to carry the fight to Australia on the third day of the second Test yesterday.
Responding to the dispiriting dismissal late on the previous afternoon of their captain Brian Lara, within sight of a cherished but evasive hundred on his home ground, they kept their powerful opponents in the field for all but 14 of the day’s 90 overs to extend their overnight 186 for three to 408.
It denied the Australians the option of enforcing the follow-on, in spite of their mammoth 576 for four declared, and virtually ensured they would be carried into the last day of the match, whatever happens, a rarity for the game’s most successful and relentless team.
Whether Steve Waugh chose to bowl again or not is open to question. But the assured manner of the denial further validated the character of a fledgling team that refuses to be distracted by the adversity of injuries, illness, umpiring decisions, flawed selection, bungled administration and the belated withdrawals of sulking stars.
Yet there is still plenty of work to be done to prevent a second defeat in the series of four Tests. A minimum of 180 overs remain over the last two days and Australia, 31 for one going into the fourth day, are 199 to the good.
The probability is that the West Indies will need to survive for considerably more than the 119 overs they occupied in their first innings on a pitch that is still ideal for batting but may not remain so to the end.
In Lara’s absence, another Trinidadian, 24-year-old Daren Ganga, became the standard bearer, completing his second successive hundred even more impressively than he had done in his first in the opening Test at Bourda, eventually falling for 117.
Ramnaresh Sarwan, 22, in his first match back since a finger injury prevented him from playing for five weeks, occupied the first hour and a half of the day with him.
They added 75 without much bother to deny the Australians an early break before Sarwan was bowled for 26 by Brett Lee’s unstoppable leg-stump yorker, as he was twice in Australia two years ago.
When Lee accounted for Ganga to an edged catch to first slip off an outswinger and Jason Gillespie produced the type of lethal off-cutter 21-year-old debutant David Bernard could never have seen in his brief career, both with the second new ball after lunch, the West Indies were again vulnerable at 300 for six.
Marlon Samuels, 22, and his fellow Jamaican, the little first time wicket-keeper Carlton Baugh, 20, responded to the situation with a partnership of 67 in an hour filled with bold strokes.
While Baugh won the hearts of an Easter Monday crowd of around 12,000 with his impish approach, Samuel’s’s 68 made in the classical mode restored an image tarnished by his careless dismissals in the Bourda Test, his first innings dropped catch off double centurion Ricky Ponting and his generally casual demeanour.
When he reverted to his nonchalance by holing out to long-off and Merv Dillon quickly followed for his 25th Test 0, the follow-on target was still one away with the last man in.
Vasbert Drakes, at 33 a cricketing elder to those who had gone before, duly gathered the necessary run and then despatched left-arm wrist spinner Brad Hogg for two long sixes off consecutive balls, the first scattering telephones, laptops and writers in the press box.
He added 32 for the last wicket with Pedro Collins before he was last out, lbw to Gillespie.
To top off a satisfying day, Drakes returned to claim the wicket of left-handed opener Justin Langer, lbw for 3, in the 14 available overs.
Ganga has been a revelation in this series. In 29 innings prior to this series, he averaged a pitiful 22.96 and his credentials had been widely questioned. In two innings, he has conclusively justified the investment made in him since first chosen on the 1998-99 tour of South Africa.
He already had 69 at the start after his restorative third wicket partnership of 158 with Lara the day before. He stroked the first ball he received for the morning, from Hogg, effortlessly to the cover boundary to announce himself ready and, against strange tactics by captain Steve Waugh, he and Sarwan settled with few alarms.
Waugh began with his own uncomplicated medium-pace from one end and Hogg from the other and called of neither fast bowlers Jason Gillespie nor Andy Bichel in the first session.
Ganga advanced to his hundred with several fine shots, none better than a straight on-drive off MacGill that Greg Chappell could not have bettered. He got there by sweeping MacGill for his 14th boundary an hour and a quarter into the day.
Quarter-hour later, Lee claimed the only wicket of the morning, bursting through Sarwan’s defence with his searing yorker.
Lee and Jason Gillespie struck twice with the second new ball after lunch.
Lee ended Ganga’s chanceless stay of five hours 26 minutes that included his straight six off Hogg the previous day and 17 fours. He drove at an outswinger without any detectable movement of his feet and was caught at first slip.
Within 25 minutes, Gillespie clipped the bemused Bernard’s off-stump.
Samuels and Baugh responded to the setbacks with their boisterous partnership of 67 that carried the West Indies to within 10 of their initial goal of making Australia bat again.
Once Samuels played himself in, he showed off some of the effortless strokes that became familiar on last year’s tour of India. They included two fours and a six over long-off in an over from Hogg that yielded 14, immediately after which was reprieved on a slip catch off Bichel’s no ball at 47.
Baugh’s two crisp, consecutive off-driven fours off Gillespie and pull off Lee further enlivened the crowd but, cutting at MacGill’s sharp leg-break from round the wicket, he hit his off-stump instead of the ball on the stroke of tea when the West Indies were 367 for seven.
When Samuels drove MacGill to long-off and Dillon was to Gillespie, lbw for his 25th 0 in Tests, the West Indies were still one short of their follow-on goal but Drakes and Pedro Collins put on 24 for the last wicket to make sure.