Friday, April 01, 2005

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 !!

No comments: