IT might have been Test cricket’s newest venue but the West Indies endured the same old problems on the opening day of the first Test against Sri Lanka at the Beausejours Stadium yesterday.
Compelled to bowl after rival captain Hashan Tillakartne called right at the toss (made with a 1928 coin to mark the 75th anniversary of the West Indies first Test), they found a pitch so sluggish that Steve Waugh might have been inclined to change his opinion that Kensington’s for the preceding series against Australia was the slowest he had ever experienced.
Their attack was staffed by one bowler in his second Test four years after his first, another aged 20 in his third, another two days short of his 19th birthday on debut and the most experienced of all who is shortening his career with his every spell.
Such a combination needs something more encouraging to make an impression against Test batsmen with the records and reputations of the Sri Lankans.
Predictably, they struggled throughout before the day’s third shower swept across the ground to end play with 2.5 of the allocated 90 overs still available and Sri Lanka comfortably placed at 250 for four.
They were conditions the Sri Lankans might have brought with them from Colombo and smuggled through customs on their arrival in St.Lucia.
Their established aversion to playing abroad centres around their concern over self-preservation and even the fearsome West Indian firebrands of an earlier generation would have been hard-pressed to scare reasonable players on such a surface.
Opener Marvan Atapattu, a modern-day Geoffrey Boycott, is not one to shun such opportunities and he duly batted from first ball to last, without fuss or bother, to complete his 11th Test hundred.
His application never wavered and his broad bat was invariably straight as he stroked 13 fours in his stay of six hours, mostly sweetly timed drives on both sides of the wicket.
He shared partnerships of 108 for the second wicket with the left-handed Kumar Sangakkara and 68 for the third with Mahela Jayawardene and resumes this morning 108.
It is his first hundred in his six Tests against the West Indies who would have spent some sleepless moments overnight mulling over the fact that he has converted five of his previous 10 hundreds into doubles.
To their credit, the West Indies stuck stoically to the task. Captain Brian Lara appreciates equally the limitations of the young team he is leading and its enormous potential for development over time and should not have been discouraged by the performance.
Corey Collymore, back for the first time since his solitary Test against Australia in 1999 and still only 25, was statistically and actually the best of the bowlers with the telling wickets of Sanath Jayasuirya at the start of the day and Tillakaratne near the end of it.
His accuracy, his variation and his intensity accentuated two questions. Why have 15 others been tried in the Test team while he had been confined to the one-day stuff?
And why did Lara use him for only 15.1 overs while giving Jerome Taylor, the richly talented, but raw, teenaged debutant, for 18 when it was clear his control over line and length was not what it has been all season.
Omari Banks, the tall, 20-year-old off-spinner, kept plugging away, alternately with and into the strong wind, for 25 overs. Too often he drifted onto leg-stump to be easily picked off for runs round the corner but he was never collared.
The disappointment again was Merv Dillon who, as all season, appeared distracted by some mysterious, weighty problem.
A wicket never appeared likely in his 17, mostly lacklustre, overs and several of his efforts in the field drew derisive laughter even from the schoolchildren who comprised a large portion of a crowd of two or three thousand. The time is nigh when the selectors must decide on his future.
Jayasuriya’s wicket was an early filip for the West Indies for there is no more quick-scoring batsman in the Sri Lankan team than the powerful left-hander.
His fierce, but familiar, cut off Collymore in the 10th over was expertly seized two-handed in the gully by Banks whose close catching is further enhancement to his all-round game.
For the next two hours, 25 minutes, the West Indies could make no advance as Atapattu and Sangakkara set the foundation for Sri Lanka.
Sangakkara was fortunate that a miscued pull off Collymore second ball lobbed into no-man’s land but he was soon gathering runs with cuts and neat strokes off his legs.
At the opposite end, Atapattu got his bearings and, after the first, brief interruption for rain, started to display his silky drives.
He paid special attention to Taylor whose length was too often half-volley and whose line too often veered leg-side. By the end of the day, Atapattu had taken nine of his 13 boundaries off the slim Jamaican, including the cover-drive that carried him to his landmark.
As the stand between Atapattu and Sangakkara built, Lara turned to occasional off-spinner Chris Gayle as his sixth bowler,
The change had the desired result as Sangakarra misread Gayle’s straight ball, delivered from round the wicket, offered pad, not bat, and was unfussily ruled LBW by umpire Billy Bowden, the usually flambouyant New Zealander.
Atapattu found another useful partner in Jayawardene who was gradually finding touch and confidence before Lara, back where he belongs at slip, snared a sharp, low right-handed catch off Banks.
The off-spinner was then operating from the south, into the breeze, and the delivery drifted away to clip the edge of Jayawardene’s drive.
Atapattu and Tillakaratne pushed the total to 228 and the only interest for the remainder of the day appeared Atapattu’s hundred when Lara recalled Collymore for his third spell after a lengthy layoff.
Atapattu had eased to 99 by now but was stranded there for three successive overs before he could get the strike again.
In that time, he watched as Tillekeratne played on to Collymore from a crooked, defensive bat. Finally a cover-driven four off Taylor carried him to his goal and he and Thilan Samaraweera kept out a clutch of yorkers from Taylor and Collymore to bat through to the final shower.