GEORGETOWN, 13 April 2003— Captain Brian Lara led the West Indies fightback with an unbeaten 81 as his team frustrated Australia in the first Test on yesterday.
With West Indies 252 runs behind after the first innings and facing a huge task to haul themselves back into match, Lara helped his side reach 245 for two at tea on the third day.
Opener Devon Smith, making his Test debut, and Daren Ganga, playing in his first series at home, also hit half centuries. Lara, playing a typically attacking innings, added an unbeaten 134 for the third wicket with Ganga, who was on 65.
The skipper wasted little time in reaching his 50, which included 11 fours. Smith had given West Indies, resuming on 16 without loss overnight, a solid start as he made 62. The 21-year-old left hander from Grenada hit 13 fours off 88 balls before edging a Jason Gillespie delivery to wicketkeeper Adam Gilchrist to leave the score 110-2.
Lara and Ganga, who is fighting to keep his place in the team after some unconvincing performances, kept the score going. The Australian bowlers, getting little help from the pitch, managed to keep Lara and Ganga quiet for an hour after lunch but the pair soon broke loose.
Ganga came back to life with two fours in the same Stuart MacGill over. He deflected a delivery from Andy Bichel between the slips for four to bring up his 50. Lara found some fluent form, sweeping a flurry of fours to all corners of the ground to reach his 50.
Earlier, Smith had given a taste of what was to come when he drove Gillespie past cover point for four off and hit the next delivery into the extra cover boundary.
Brett Lee, in a wasteful spell which included three no balls in a single over, got similar treatment shortly afterward. Smith drove the pace bowler straight down the ground for four and pulled a short delivery over wide mid-on for another boundary in the same over.
Smith and Wavell Hinds put on 52 for the first wicket before Hinds was out lbw for seven in the third ball of leg spinner MacGill’s first over. It was another controversial decision by umpire Asoka da Silva of Sri Lanka as replays suggested the ball was missing leg stump.
Smith carried on to reach his 50 with successive fours off MacGill, the second a full toss which he smashed to the long-off boundary.
N. Zealand to Go Ahead With
Sri Lanka Tour: Cricket Board
In Colombo, New Zealand’s cricket tour of Sri Lanka is set to go ahead, their cricket board said yesterday. The trip had been in doubt because of the deadly Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak in Asia.
The New Zealanders had said they would monitor the rapidly-spreading SARS, which has killed more than 200 people worldwide, before committing to the tour.
No SARS cases have been reported in Sri Lanka so the Kiwis are due in Colombo early Tuesday. New Zealand’s cricketers have always had reservations about touring Sri Lanka due to the Indian Ocean island’s long-running separatist armed conflict.
