BRIAN LARA dragged himself out of his sick bed at the Accra Hotel yesterday afternoon in a brave but belated effort to come to the aid of his beleagured West Indies team on the third day of the third Test yesterday.
Amidst strong, but unconfirmed, reports that had circulated since morning that he had come down with chicken pox on the day before, his 34th birthday, Lara arrived at the ground just after tea.
Half-hour later, he emerged from the steps of the Sir Garfield Sobers pavilion and onto the ground where, four years ago, he had fashioned his most famous innings against the same opponents.
His reception, especially from the West Indian diehards in the Kensington Stand, was of loud and ecstatic relief. If they had heard the speculation, the Australians did not show it for they remained in positions of close proximity.
The scoreboard revealed the gravity of the situation. The West Indies, at 245 for six responding to Australia’s overwhelming 605 for nine declared, were heading towards a sizeable deficit and a likely follow-on.
But here now was the saviour of countless lost causes, striding out to tackle his favourite rivals on favoured terrain. There was hope yet.
It was optimism that did not take into account the medical reality that an ill man was subjecting himself to the severest examination in the fierce heat, actual and metaphorical, of sporting battle.
It was soon obvious that this Lara was a mere shadow of the devastating batsman whose previous three innings were 110, 91 and 122 but, somehow, will power and skill kept him going for an hour and 20 minutes and 54 balls.
In that time, he offered an unaccepted chance to Ricky Ponting at second slip off Jason Gillespie and eeked out 14 scratchy runs.
He was five overs away from carrying through to the close and, hopefully, resuming after a night’s medicated rest when Andy Bichel, the least considered but the most enthusiastic of the four Australian fast bowlers, finally persuaded umpire Srinivasa Venkataraghavan to grant him an lbw decision.
Lara stood in disbelief before trudging back to the pavilion, briefly indicating he had got his bat to the ball, an observation confirmed by the tv replay. It was an ironic end to the episode.
When the little wicket-keeper Carlton Baugh also got an edge onto his pad, off leg-spinner Stuart MacGill’s second ball of the day’s last over, it rounded to be caught by Ponting at silly point, leaving the West Indies 291 for eight.
That is 314 in arrears on a bare, dry, increasingly cracked pitch described by Australian captain Steve Waugh as the slowest he had played on in his 159 Tests but showing an inclination to keep low.
With two days remaining, they will do well to salvage a draw and prevent Australia extending their lead to 3-0 in the series of four Tests.
Twice during the day, partnerships frustrated the Australians. Each time one was broken, another wicket fell.
Twice in the second session, careless strokes, the first off a full toss, the second off a long hop, cost Daren Ganga and Shivnarine Chanderpaul their wickets and compounded the effect of Lara’s illness.
Over the first hour and 35 minutes, left-handers Chris Gayle and Devon Smith extended their opening parnership from its overnight 89 to 139 with watchful, sensible batting that mirrored that of the previous day.
Gayle escaped on Gillespie’s low, missed catch at mid-on off MacGill at 50 but he and his new partner kept putting the few loose balls away with thrilling drives through the off-side.
Once Gillespie replaced the steady, but unthreatening, Glenn McGrath the tenor of the game changed.
While McGrath, MacGill and Brett Lee consistently pegged away, Gillespie immediately moved around a ball in its 40th over and a wicket looked likely at any time.
He confused both Gayle and Smith with his late, each-way swing and had them back in the pavilion in successive overs. He first squared up Gayle to hit his off-stump, ending a worthy comeback by the chastened Jamaican whose 71 was spread over three hours and 10 minutes.
In his next over, Gillespie ended Smith’s 59 with an edged drive to the keeper.
With Lara absent, and slotted at No.11 on the scoreboard, Ganga and Ramnaresh Sarwan slowly, but surely, put on 63 for the third wicket before Ganga and Shivnarine Chanderpaul fell in successive overs to two of the loosest balls of the match.
Untroubled for two hours, 10 minutes and 89 balls, Ganga took a knee high full toss from the left-arm spinner Darren Lehmann and paddled it limply to mid-on.
In the next over, the left-handed Chanderpaul pulled his first ball, a long hop leg-break from MacGill, high to mid-wicket where Lee claimed a good, running catch. From Test cricket’s third fastest 100 in Georgetown, he now equalled its fastest 0.
As Lara was only now on his way to Kensington, Omari Banks, unscarred by the mauling his off-spin took from the Australians on his Test debut, came and batted enterprisingly in adding 40 with Sarwan.
Drives straight and through midon off MacGill and another straight off Lee brought the crowd to its feet and he outlasted Sarwan - just.
The vice-captain had batted almost three hours for 40 when he was attracted to an outswinger from Lee and touched a catch to Gilchrist, extending his string of Test dismissals by the blond fast bowler to four.
Banks went at the same score to Ponting’s sharp catch at second slip off Gillespie at which point Lara made his grand entrance.
But neither he nor the enterprising Carlton Baugh made it through to the end.