Chanderpaul declares ...

Not only has Chanderpaul reached a well-deserved double hundred, he has made a telling statement by declaring immediately. I think the West Indies mean serious business here. Although the Guyana pitch is notoriously batsman-friendly and hence draw-oriented, the West Indies want to make every effort to extract a win here. Maybe the whole contracts controversy was just the tonic these guys needed ... Maybe it's just a decent performance on a flat pitch that wouldn't count for much in the long run - who knows ?? Could go either way - although I root for the West Indies as always. One doubt though - 543 is just not a large enough score - surely, the best chance for the West Indies to win is the follow-on and maybe they should have gone on for just a little while longer to make sure that South Africa would have to face the follow-on.

UPDATE: Not only was the Chanderpaul declaration a bit weird, but as it turns out, it was also pretty stupid. Within 2 balls of the South African innings, the umpires offered the light to the batsmen who gleefully accepted. 16 overs wasted !! Shows his inexperience as skipper, poor fellow !!