IN roughly the time it took the hundreds of late comers to rush from downtown Port-of-Spain and its environs to the Queen's Park Oval yesterday morning to witness the Brian Lara Show, the second Test went from the sublime to the ridiculous for the West Indies, from the rising hope of a remarkable victory to the despair of crushing defeat.
In the two hours to lunch, captain Lara fashioned an innings of exceptional brilliance, even by the standards of the several that have confirmed him as the game's most devastating batsman.
On the way to finally completing his first hundred in his tenth Test on the ground that has been his cricketing home since he was a boy, he had to endure a searching examination of his skill and courage from the raw speed and hostility of Brett Lee and the ferocity of opponents determined not to let him deny them their just rewards as he twice did the last time they were here.
It was a confrontation worth the price of admission on its own.
Ramnaresh Sarwan supported him through the wicketless session, adding 103 to extend the overnight 107 for three to 210 for three at lunch.
Suddenly the distant target of 407 did not seem so distant after all, even if it was one more than India's total to beat the West Indies on the same Queen's Park Oval that has remained Test cricket's record winning total since 1976
As the glad tidings spread around the capital, the empty spaces in the stands began to fill but, within 50 minutes of resumption after lunch, the optimism had turned to disappointing anti-climax as five wickets, including Lara's, tumbled for 25.
The transformation was initiated by Australia's least regarded fast bowler Andy Bichel, who was seemingly just keeping the place in the team for Glenn McGrath who is now back after compassionate leave to be with his ill wife in Australia.
Bichel plays every match as if it is his last anyhow and, called in to take over from Lee who was spent after his seven express overs in the heat, he claimed the first three wickets for six runs from 21 balls in his first spell of the day.
Sarwan's was the first, to the dreaded hook that has now been his downfall five times in his brief Test career. Carelessly underestimating the new, less pacy bowler, he went into the shot the first ball he took from him and lobbed a catch to mid-on, the waste of over two hours hard grind for 36.
Marlon Samuels, lbw playing across the line, and Dave Bernard, snapped up by Hayden at first slip from a edged, flat-footed stroke, soon followed and leg-spinner Stuart MacGill virtually ensured the outcome that guaranteed Australia retain the Frank Worrell Trophy by ending Lara's commanding performance.
After five hours all told in the middle, that included a six and 13 fours, the champion left-hander fell to Matthew Hayden's sharp slip catch as he cut at a bouncing leg-break.
Carlton Baugh followed with a skied catch to cover from an ambitious stroke that revealed his tender age and inexperience and, after a brief, irrelevant flourish from tailenders Vasbert Drakes and Merv Dillon, Lee and Jason Gillespie finished off the match with the second new ball on the stroke of tea.
It was a huge letdown after a morning session that advertised Test cricket at its best.
The 12,000 or so who made their way to the Oval came in the confident expectation that, this time, Lara, with 52 already in the book, would treat them to the kind of miracle he had performed only on foreign fields.
He did not disappoint - and nor did his combative opponents whose captain had challenged them with a declaration, his second of the match, that few others would have dared make.
They knew, as everyone with even a passing interest in the game knew, that Lara was their only threat. He had beaten them off his own bat before, twice and most famously in their last series in the Caribbean four years ago.
This time, when he entered the contest at a precarious 12 for two the previous afternoon, he brought with him the form of successive scores of 110 and 91.
The Australians went at him with everything they had, first with the combination of the controlled pace and movement of Gillespie from the north and Hogg's left-arm wrist spin from the pavilion.
He comfortably saw off that challenge with two fours off each and a hoisted six over long-on off Hogg.
One stroke through midwicket, as he waltzed down to Hogg and whipped the ball to the boundary with an expansive flourish of the bat, was all Sobers. An improbable, but flawless, drive to the extra-cover boundary off Gillespie off the back foot was all Lara.
Sarwan, who escaped a run out chance at 2 when Steve Waugh's throw from mid-wicket missed the target, was understandably less imperious but he also reeled off a couple of boundaries that caught the eye.
Yet it was not until Lee was introduced after five overs from Hogg that Lara was most severely tested.
Disregarding the easy- paced character of a wonderful batting pitch that produced a double and five singles hundreds, Lee sprinted in with malice aforethought and consistently delivered his thunderbolts in the mid-90 miles an hour range.
Lara and Sarwan took blows on the shoulder and Sarwan just managed to keep out the kind of yorker that shattered his middle and leg stumps in the first innings.
Lara had to keep bobbing and weaving and wicket-keeper Adam Gilchrist stretching to his full height to gather.
There has not been a more lethal bouncer at the Oval since the heyday of Michael Holding and Malcolm Marshall than Lee's that only Lara's form and keen eye saved him from decapitation.
It was hair-raising stuff that had the Oval in a ferment. It goes straight into the indelible memory bank alongside Holding's celebrated over to Geoff Boycott in 1981 and Jeff Thomson's fearsome hour and a half burst that removed Gordon Greenidge, Alvin Kallicharran and Viv Richards in 1978, both at Kensington Oval.
Lara rode the storm, taking 33 balls of Lee's seven overs and twice counter-attacking with two crisp pull shots and a confident cut.
At the opposite end, Sarwan seemed to be finding it hard to maintain concentration, occasionally attempting an impulsive shot and, at 17, escaping on Hayden's miss, diving wide to his right from slip, off MacGill.
Yet he remained Lara's steadfast ally until lunch during which the talk around the ground was not so much of if the West Indies would win but when.
That it should so rapidly have turned into defeat was a disspiriting blow.