Tony Becca, Contributing Editor
THE FINAL Test of the three-match series between the West Indies and Australia gets under way in Adelaide tonight (local time) with the home team gunning for a victory that would hand them a clean sweep over the visitors for the second time in 75 years and 22 contests.
Winners of the first Test by 379 runs and the second Test by nine wickets, Australia have already retained the Sir Frank Worrell Trophy and are firm favourites to make it three out of three and to emulate their shut out of the West Indies in 2000-01, when Steve Waugh's team demolished Jimmy Adams' team 5-0.
Boasting a batting line-up of Matthew Hayden and Justin Langer - who has recovered from injury and will be making his first appearance in the series, Ricky Ponting, Michael Hussey, Brad Hodge, Andrew Symonds and Adam Gilchrist, and an attack to come from pacers Glenn McGrath, Brett Lee and Nathan Bracken as well as legspinners Shane Warne and Stuart MacGill, Australia are strong, really strong, and should be too good, too hot, for the West Indies.
GOOD PERFORMANCES
In the last Test match, however, the West Indies turned in two good performances - one on the third day when, with Australia rolling along on 256 for one, they snatched nine wickets for 150 runs to limit them to 406, and one on the fourth day, when, with their second innings apparently in ruins at 140 for six, Dwayne Bravo and Denesh Ramdin posted a seventh-wicket partnership of 182.
It was batting of the highest quality and, hopefully, it has inspired the other West Indies batsmen. And if it has, even though the team will be without Chris Gayle and Marlon Samuels, a batting line-up that includes Wavell Hinds and Devon Smith, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Brian Lara, Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Dwayne Smith should be able to find enough runs to prevent a whitewash.
Important in all of that, however, will be the performance of star batsman Lara, and after falling to three dubious decisions in four innings - two leg before wickets and one caught behind, the West Indies will be hoping for a change in his luck this time around.
Unlike the docile, almost perfect batting pitch at the Bellerive Oval in Hobart, the pitch at the Adelaide Oval is expected to be livelier, and if that is the case, it will be difficult for the West Indies batsmen - especially if Australia decide to go back to an attack of three pacers and one spinner and they are up against McGrath and Lee, left-arm swing bowler Bracken and Warne.
A livelier pitch, however, would be better for the West Indies bowlers and if they can find a level of consistency, if they bowl as well as they did up to the last hour on the first day of the first Test and again on the third day of the second Test, if Fidel Edwards, Corey Collymore, Bravo and Daren Powell are at their best it could be interesting, very interesting, and particularly so if they can pick up a couple wickets early and get an early shot at Hussey, Hodge and Symonds in the middle of Australia's batting.
The odds on a draw, or a victory, are definitely against the West Indies whose attack of pacers Edwards, Powell, Collymore and Bravo will now be supported not by the offspin of Gayle and Samuels, but by the medium-pace of Dwayne Smith and Hinds.
With five victories, including one by 408 runs in 1979-80 and by one run in 1992-93, to Australia's four in 12 encounters, however, the West Indies have done well at Adelaide, and with some positive batting and a lot of luck, they could, as they did at the Antigua Recreation Ground in 2003 when they won the last Test match after losing the first three, win this final match of the series and once again avoid a shut out.
