Test #1836 West Indies in England 2007 (4^th Test) at Riverside Ground, Chester-le-Street

The latest test series between West Indies and England resulted in the same manner as did the every series in the new millennium. After winning the first test of the new millennium played at Edgbaston from June 15^th to 17 th inside three days by a huge margin of an innings and 93 runs, they are yet to register a test victory against England. West Indies went on to surrender The John Wisden Trophy in 2000 series by losing three of the next four tests with the rain ruined third test played at Old Trafford ending in a draw. Thus they ended their supremacy of last 27 years of 20^th century during which they never lost a test series to England.

Odds were never in their favor to regain the John Wisden Trophy even before they started the 2007 series. Yes, not even before Brian Lara announced his retirement from the international Cricket immediately after the World Cup debacle. However they did put up a good show in the first test at Lord’s though weather ruined the proceedings and helped West Indies in escaping the test match with a draw. If Chanderpaul’s absence in the 2^nd test was itself a major blow for the West Indies, they took another crushing blow when their captain Ramnaresh Sarwan suffered a series ending injury in the second test before even taking a batting stance. There after things went from bad to worse with Chris Gayle not being able to take off at all and their stop-gap skipper Daren Ganga having a horrible existence at the crease since taking over the captaincy with scores of 5 & 9, 5 & 0 , 0 & 6. The Brilliance of Bravo and Resilience of Chanderpaul could not stop West Indies from losing last three tests even though it looked as if West Indies might avoid a defeat while Chanderpaul and Bravo were batting in last two tests. So England extends their streak of not losing a test match to West Indies to sixteen and West Indies requires a tremendous amount of reversal in their cricketing fortunes even to dream of regaining the John Wisden trophy when they host England in 2009.

Following are some of the statistical highlights of the fourth test of the 2007 series:

Though England dominated the test series from every imaginable angle, one batsman they could not corner was Shivnarine Chanderpaul. Chanderpaul topped the batting averages for both sides but ended up on the losing side as he did in 2004 notching up plethora of test records in the process. He batted for more than 1000 minutes without getting dismissed while making 116* in the 2^nd innings of the 3^rd test at Old Trafford and 136* & 70 in the 4^th test at Chester-le-Street. This is the third time he recorded this feat in his test career. Only five other batsmen achieved this record in test history and none of them had done it more than once.

Just for the record : Hanif Mohammad of Pakistan holds the record for batting for longest period in a single test match with his marathon knock of 337 in 970 minutes against West Indies at Bridgetown in 1957/58 whereas Aussie Opener Mark Taylor with 334* (720 mts) & 92 (218 mts) against Pakistan at Peshawar 1998/99 is close second with 938 mts of batting before getting dismissed. However Stephen Fleming of New Zealand holds the record for batting longest period of 956 minutes without getting dismissed in a single test with the scores of 274* (653) & 69* (303) against Sri Lanka at Colombo (PSS) in 2003. Fleming however was dismissed for a duck in the next match after batting for just 5 mts thus missing the 1000 mts mark.

Chanderpaul’s latest 1000+ minutes batting between dismissals also makes him the owner of another interesting record. For the second time in his career he now has witnessed 20 or more wickets falling consecutively at the other end while he himself remained not out. In the third test at Old Trafford he came into bat at 88 for 3 and remained unbeaten at the close of West Indian innings, thus seeing seven of his teammates losing their wickets. In the fourth test at Chester-le-Street , Chanderpaul came into bat at 34 for 3 and remained not out again for 136 witnessing seven more wickets falling at the other end. In the second innings of the same test he stepped in at 38 for 3 and saw six wickets falling at the other end before becoming the last batsman out in the innings for 70. However his unbeaten tenure at the crease which made him saw 20 of his side’s dismissals is still one dismissal short of his record 21 dismissals he witnessed during his record 1513 minutes of unbeaten batting against India in 2001-02 as he saw 6 wickets falling during his 2^nd innings knock of 67* at Port of Spain, 6 wickets during 101* at Bridgetown, 6 wickets during 136* at St. John’s and 3 wickets during his 1^st innings knock of 58 at Kingston. No other batsmen in the history of test cricket batted with such patience and perseverance to endure so many wickets falling at the opposite end. The closest to Chanderpaul’s record is 18 dismissals shared by Jacques Rudolph of South Africa and Kumara Sangakkara of Sri Lanka. Rudolph made 154* at Auckalnd and 93* & 0 at Wellington in 2003-04 series against New Zealand whereas Sangakkara made 100* at Christchurch and 156* & 8 at Wellington against the same opposition in 2006-07. They both came at the fall of first wicket in their unbeaten innings.

When West Indian skipper Daren Ganga was out lbw to the first ball of the test match bowled by Ryan Sidebottom, he not only became the 26^th player to be dismissed by the first ball of a Test Match but also just the third captain to have suffered the ignominy. At Headingley in 1926, acting as a stop-gap captain in the absence of the appointed captain Herbie Collins just like Darren Ganga, Warren Bardsley of Australia became the first captain to have suffered the fate of getting out to the first ball of a test match.. Seventy three years later Sri Lankan skipper Sanath Jayasuriya fell to the first ball of the match, bowled by Australia's Glenn McGrath at Galle in 1999-00. For the entire list of batsmen who were out to the first legitimate delivery of a test match refer to the table in my posting on Test #1832 which saw India’s opener Wasim Jaffer shouldering his arms to an incoming delivery from Bangladesh’s Mashrafe Mortaza to lose his stumps to the first ball of a test match and provide 25^th such instance.

For the Trivia buffs : When AC MacLaren of Australia was out to the first ball of the Melbourne test in 1894/95 of the bowling of Arthur Conningham, he provided first such instance. It was also Arthur Conningham’s first delivery in his test career . Mohsin Khan’s dismissal with the first ball of 1983/84 test at Jalandhar by Kapil Dev and Sunil Gavaskar’s first ball dismissal by Imran Khan at Jaipur provides the only two instances in test cricket a wicket falling to the first ever ball bowled at a particular venue.. Sunil Gavaskar of India and Hannan Sarkar of Bangladesh are the only batsmen to have suffered fate of losing their wicket to the first ball of a test match on three separate occasions whereas Geoff Arnold of England (2), Richard Hadlee of New Zealand (2) , Kapil Dev of India (2) and Pedro Collins of West Indies (3) are the only bowlers to have taken a wicket with the first delivery bowled in a test match on more than one occasion. Hannan Sarkar also holds the record for getting out to the first delivery of a test match in three consecutive tests, which as of today are his last three matches of his test career. Keith Stackpole of Australia in 1973/74 at Auckland against New Zealand and Wasim Jaffer against Bangladesh at Chittagong followed up their first ball dismissal of a test match with another duck in their second innings. SJ Cook of South Africa and LV Garrick of New Zealand were out to the first ball of a test match while making their test debut. Except Zimbabwe batsmen of all test playing nations have at least one batsmen or bowler involved in a first ball dismissal in a test match.

During his first innings knock of 136* Chanderpaul crossed the ’s 7000 test runs milestone and became the 7^th West Indian and 30^th test cricketer to have done so. Following is the list of all players with 7000 or more test runs.

Finally England’s Andrew Strauss stuck some batting form and made a fine 77 in the first innings. In the second innings he completed 3000 runs in Test Cricket and became the 143 cricketer to do so and 34^th from England.

Final Statistical Tidbit: Matt Prior’s 324 runs from 6 innings he came into bat in this series is the new record for a wicket keeper’s debut test series eclipsing the previous best of 264 by Adam Gilchrist in his maiden test series against Pakistan in 1999/00.