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England make it two in a row

Spare a thought, folks, for Carl Hooper -- the Mister Elegance of West Indies cricket.

It is not often that a number four batsman comes out to face the fourth ball of the innings, with the scoreboard reading 0/2, bats right through the remaining 49.2 overs, gets to his 100 off the last ball of the 50th over, then comes back to bowl eight superbly restrictive overs for 22 runs and one wicket, wins the man of the match award for his all-round efforts -- and still finds himself on the losing side.

In the event, England went out deserving winners by four wickets, getting to the modest West Indies target with 4.1 overs to spare. And now, with two wins in as many games and one last outing against Pakistan to follow, England have, against pre-tournament predictions, as good as booked its berth in the finals.

This time round, Walsh called right, and choose right when he opted to bat first -- on the evidence thus far, though the expected dew has not played a big role in the second innings, it does appear that chasing big totals under lights here is proving rather iffy for the team batting second.

But then, winning the toss was only half the battle -- to succeed, West Indies needed anything in excess of 240 on the board. Doughie Brown, who is, at his fearsome best, medium pace line and length, bowled the first ball, straight, good length, on off, Philo Wallace waved casually at it, missed, and found his leg stump pegged back. Brian Lara came out, defended to ball two, tried to glance ball three, missed, was struck on the pad in front of middle and leg and deemed out LBW. West Indies 0/2 in the first over, and that pretty much knocked the stuffing out of them right there.

For trivia buffs, an interesting sidelight -- come the next county season, Lara will be captaining Warwickshire. And one of his bowlers then will be said Doughie Brown, who today inflicted on his captain to be the indignity of a second ball duck.

Stuart Williams and Carl Hooper did a heroic job of pulling it back for the batting side, batting with sound commonsense to take the score to 39/2 in ten. However Williams, who appeared to be riding the confidence of his good knock the previous day, undid all the hard work with a casual flick at one from Headley on his middle and leg, for Thorpe to hold well at short midwicket. What made the dismissal ridiculous was that Williams had all along been playing the ball in that direction, a shade in the air. England skipper Adam Hollioake removed his sole slip, posted him at short midwicket for just that shot, and off the very next ball, Williams obligingly walked into the trap.

Shivnaraine Chanderpaul, after a rather nervous start, appeared to be settling in very nicely while, at the other end, Carl Hooper looked absolutely untroubled by the sight of his colleagues vanishing like dew at dawn. And together, the two began, again, the repair work when umpire B C Cooray came up with the first of two totally shocking decisions. The ball from Ealham, bowling over the wicket, was pitched outside the left hander's leg stump -- and that fact alone meant that no matter where the ball hit the pad, there was no way an LBW could be upheld, the rules clearly stating that the decision is not on to a ball landing outside line of leg. In the event, Chanderpaul was rapped in front of leg stump and Cooray without an instant's hesitation pointed skywards. West Indies 77/4.

The irony of the situation was that from there on, Hooper and Simmons, both free stroking batsmen, were forced to curb their inclinations and, against Croft and Ealham doing nothing more offensive than bowl wicket to wicket, were forced to push the ball around and look for singles. Every instinct of a top batsman against that kind of bowling would have been to demolish it -- to their credit, the two players in the middle put their heads down and batted with exemplary patience -- as evidenced by a progression rate of 81/4 in 25, 98/3 in 30, 126/4 in 35.

At that point, the situation was that if the pair could continue for another five overs, then West Indies could still make a push for a score of around 210, 220 at the end of 50 -- only, in the 36th over, Simmons flicked at a ball from Hollioake he in a different context would perhaps have laid back and pulled, and midwicket was in business again.

First David Williams, then Rawl Lewis and finally Franklyn Rose kept Hooper company, but as the last recognised batsman, Hooper was effectively batting with handcuffs on, pushing the ball around, taking it in singles, inching the score along and concentrating on making sure that his side was not bowled out in less than the stipulated 50 overs. A magnificient display of concentration and determination from a player who is generally believed to possess oodles of talent but zero application. And an indication of his immense talent lies in the fact that even in such a case, he got to his century -- with a single off the last ball of the 50th over -- off only 135 deliveries, with six fours. No bashing the ball around, no flourishes, just smooth, clean cricket, and yet a healthy strike rate.

For England, Ealham was easily the bowler of the innings -- an analysis of 10-1-28-1a tribute to his nagging accuracy, and an ability to bowl his gentle medium pacers right up there in the stroke-denying length, on or around off, for over after over. Croft with none for 40 and Hollioake with 1/41 off 8 were the main support acts, while Mathew Fleming's 8-1-36-1 at the fag end of the innings, again, proved just how hard really slow, accurate bowling was to hit about.

Courtney Walsh was sheer brilliance in the game against Pakistan. Here, against England, he was perhaps just that shade desperate to get the breakthrough. Deviating from his usual immaculate line, the Windies skipper kept trying either the fullish-length attempted yorker, or the short ball with a man out in the deep for the hook. And Alec Stewart, who seems in prime form, punished him with a blazing cover drive to the full length ball on off, then two savage pulls through midwicket, to take 12 off an over -- a rare occurence when Walsh bowls the early overs.

Interestingly Rose, who the other day was prodigality personified, tightened up his act and, in fact, got the breakthrough when he got one to kick off a length, forcing Brown to wave a helpless bat at it and the edge carrying to square leg, England 21/1.

Two deliveries later, Umpire Cooray struck again. Rose bowled a beaut of an off cutter, pitching on off, seaming away from the left-handed Nick Knight, taking the thick edge straight to the keeper, and the umpire kept his hands at his sides. That, more than the LBW against Chanderpaul, raises eyebrows -- after all, in the heat of the moment you may, perhaps, miss spotting where the ball landed, but how anyone can miss a thick edge, the snick clearly audible through the stump mike and the deviation pronounced, defeats me.

England should have been 21/2. In the event, the score went to 45 before Stewart, a bit over-confident, drove on the up at one from Rose that was not in the slot for the shot, and gave Walsh at mid off a low catch.

Amost immediately thereafter, Mervyn Dillon -- who to my mind is a pretty under-rated bowler -- made one kick surprisingly off good length, on off, and a hapless Knight fended it off with his glove for the diminutive David Williams, diving sideways a long way to leg and reaching high for it, to take a superb catch. 53/3 England.

Hick's trepidation against genuine quick bowling is common knowledge, and Walsh sought to exploit it with a forward short leg and a backward square leg in place, bowling a stream of short, lifting deliveries into the ribs. However, the problem was that by then, Rose had already bowled 8, Walsh too was at the point where he was running out of overs for the death, and thus the introduction of spin became mandatory. Hick weathered the testing phase along with Thorpe, then grew in confidence when the spinners came on, and the score moved smoothly on to 100 before Chanderpaul produced a stunning piece of work at cover. Hick drove, the fielder dived a long way to his right. fielded and, while prone, slammed the throw back to knock middle stump before Hick, who had looked for a single, could recover his ground.

England captain Adam Hollioake is the kind of bustling player who reminds you of Ajay Jadeja. The same awareness of gaps, the same willingness to go for every possible -- and some impossible --- singles, the same bustling style of play. But he, too, fell for the sucker punch when Walsh moved a man backward of square and Dillon bounced one at him, the batsman wafting the ball straight down the throat of Chanderpaul who had been posted just for that shot.

If England, from 127/5 in 30 overs, sailed smoothly through to the finish, the credit goes to Thorpe. Tentative at the start, he kept his head down, concentrated on the singles, kept the board ticking along and, despite the fall of wickets at the other end, refused to indulge in any extravagant hitting. A calm, steady knock of 57 off 75 that, for England, was as much value as Hooper's innings had been for the West Indies. Rather against the run of play, Thorpe fell when he cut at Hooper and got an edge to the keeper -- Cooray, this time, making no mistake. The score then was 173/6, and Mark Ealham and Doughie Brown took the game home with ease from that point on.

I reckon Walsh helped the English side a bit, at the end. When Thorpe got out, Hooper was bowling a very restrictive line and against the lower middle order, his nagging accuracy could well have produced another wicket or two. Strangely, he was removed from the attack and Walsh brought first Rose, then himself, back on in a bid to break through. Against the quicker pace of the fast men, little nudges beat the infield and the batsmen got two were, earlier, they were struggling to get singles, and Ealham finished it off in style when Walsh bowled one short and in the slot for the pulled four to midwicket.

Bowling his defensive line to Pakistan, Walsh had analysis of 8-0-14-1 and in the process, put so much pressure on the batsmen that they ended up taking risks against the other bowlers and getting out. Here, Walsh deviated from what he does best, bowled too many short balls, and ended up going for 51 off 9.5 overs.

To my mind, Walsh erred again when he gave the gentle medium pace of Simmons just two overs -- in the previous game, it was Simmons in tandem with Lewis that had blocked Pakistan through the middle overs and forced the fatal risk-taking towards the end, and I thought the ploy could have been tried again here. With more dew falling than on the previous days, Lewis meanwhile found that he couldn't grip the ball enough to get the same kind of turn as in game one. Thus, it was left for Hooper to supplement his batting heroics with a superb spell of thoughtful off spin bowling, his figures of 8-1-22-1 a tribute to accuracy and a very, very good line and length.

West Indies have one more game against India and, with one win under its belt, a chance of making it to the final. However, before that comes the big one -- India versus Pakistan, Sunday. Both teams go into the second round with a defeat apiece, and need to win to stay in the hunt for a berth in the finals. Pakistan, after this, has one game against England, India has one against the West Indies -- but it is the India-Pakistan tie that will really open the league up and give a better indicator of the final lineup.

Watch for it. Like the ad lines say, this one should be a cracker.

Note: The full scorecard will be added on tomorrow morning. For now, the brief scores: West Indies 197/7 in 50 overs, Hooper 100 not out; England 198/6 in 45.5 overs, Thorpe 57.