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South Africa v West Indies, 2nd Test, Cape Town, 3rd day
Battling Prince puts South Africa in control
The Bulletin by Martin Williamson
January 4, 2008
West Indies 243 and 96 for 4 (Chanderpaul 8*, Gayle 1*) lead South Africa 321 (Prince 98, Boucher 59, Bravo 4-82) by 18 runs
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
How they were out
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Ashwell Prince falls two short of a hundred as he fails to beat Jerome Taylor's throw from the deep
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South Africa gradually turned the screw on the third day at Newlands, building a telling first-innings lead of 78 and then chipping away at West Indies top order in the evening sunshine. By the close, West Indies were still battling, but at 96 for 4, a lead of 18, they were very much staring down the barrel.
They still have the limpet-like Shivnarine Chanderpaul at the crease, but first time round he received scant support from a paper-thin tail and he is not the man to bludgeon the opposition out of the game. Chris Gayle is also there but he is troubled by his ongoing hamstring injury. After them there is little to give cause for hope back in the Caribbean.
It was Ashwell Prince, who robbed himself of a deserved hundred with an ill-advised gamble against Jerome Taylor's rifled throw, that ensured that South Africa gained a first-innings lead at all after they slid to 131 for 5 yesterday. He played the kind of innings that has become the hallmark of Chanderpaul - defending solidly, leaving as often as necessary, playing and missing once in a while, and occasionally unleashing a crisp drive or powerful pull. It was not one of his most attractive knocks few have been more valuable.
South Africa cruised through the first hour as Prince and Mark Boucher extended their sixth-wicket stand to 129. Prince was cautious, Boucher more adventurous, the bowling fairly tame and runs came steadily if not quickly. The first hour was all South Africa, in the second West Indies fought back gamely just as it seemed things were slipping away from them.
Gayle's options were limited with Fidel Edwards off the field and Dwayne Bravo stiff after his marathon efforts with the ball yesterday. Neither Taylor or Daren Powell posed too many problems with the relatively new ball, unable to find a consistent line or length, and Boucher and Prince rotated the strike skilfully to add to the drip-drip pressure on the fielders. Boucher made a couple of false shots in between some beautiful ones, and was extremely lucky that Brendan Parchment's underarm throw missed the stumps when his judgement deserted him and left him yards short. But his 31st Test fifty was warmly applauded and few can have been so valuable.
Bravo, after a few overs had loosened his aching limbs, made the breakthrough when Boucher tried one pull too many and bottom edged into his stumps. While it did not exactly open the floodgates, it visibly gave West Indies' bowlers a fillip. Powell found an extra yard and a better line to lure Paul Harris into a loose drive and then entice a nick from Andre Nel.
The difference between the sides was that West Indies' last five wickets added 23 as Chanderpaul looked on. South Africa's, however, put on 190 as Boucher, Nel and Dale Steyn did what any good tail should so and frustrated their opponents.
Without Gayle, icing his leg which had stiffened up in the field, West Indies opened with Daren Ganga and Denesh Ramdin. Against a fired-up Nel, who has rarely bowled better, and Makhaya Ntini they played and missed and looked ripe for getting out at any moment. But, vitally, they survived, saw off the new ball and with the introduction of the wounded Steyn, reduced to three-quarter pace by a hamstring strain, they knew that they had weathered a major storm.
That good work was undone in the space of six balls after tea. Firstly Jacques Kallis produced a snorter which Ramdin tickled to Boucher, and then Morton wafted and nicked a wide one from Steyn that he should never have been playing. Morton, in the briefest of stays, had already tried to run out Ganga and it was hard to believe that there wasn't a better option somewhere.
Ganga's gutsy battle for survival was ended with he loosely drove at Ntini and was bowled through a large gate, and then as the shadows lengthened Marlon Samuels was leg before to Nel falling over to the off side. West Indies lead was barely in double figures.
Gayle hobbled out with a runner on a day when you wondered exactly who qualified for someone to run for them. Gayle came into the match with an injury and so should not have had one, while Steyn's use of aid was evern more bizarre as no sooner had his innings ended he was sprinting in from the Wynberg End.
Martin Williamson is executive editor of Cricinfo
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