BECCA

The West Indies lost the third Test match by 60 runs at Old Trafford yesterday, the count is now two for England, zero for the West Indies and with only one match to go, England have clinched the four-match contest.

Although the result of the series confirms the West Indies position in the cellar of world cricket - next to Zimbabwe and Bangladesh, and even though the result of the match was disappointing, there were some good moments for the Windies.

In fact, they were good enough to suggest that had the West Indies selected a good squad from the beginning, had they selected a good team for the match, they may well have pushed England closer and who to tell, based on how they finished, they probably would have even won the match.

Make no bones about it, but for the period between lunch and tea on day one, the West Indies' fielding, their catching, was atrocious and after easing along nicely, after looking threatening at 216 for four with Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Dwayne Bravo going well, there can be no excuse for the West Indies' dismal batting which saw them losing six wickets for 13 runs in 44 deliveries in their first innings.

Those two performances apart, however, the West Indies played quite well - and particularly so in the second innings when, set a victory target of 455, they got to within 61.

Batting on a pitch on which the ball turned viciously, on a pitch off which the ball bounced alarmingly, batting against the tall fast bowler Steve Harmison, left-arm swing bowler Ryan Sidebottom and left-arm spinner Monty Panesar, the West Indies batsmen, led by Chanderpaul and for captain Daren Ganga and Chris Gayle, batted sensibly while displaying the sort of discipline and character which have been long missing in West Indies cricket.

With the ball cutting and spinning and bouncing out of the rough in front of him, the left-handed Chanderpaul batted brilliantly in one of his finest performances for the West Indies - a performance in which he batted undefeated while scoring 116 in 413 minutes off 257 deliveries.

Devon Smith, RunakoMorton, Bravo and Denesh Ramdin all batted well.

The master

Chanderpaul, however, was the master. His judgement of when to play and when not to play, when to stroke the ball away and when simply to block, was superb in conditions which were so difficult that one delivery, from spinner Panesar, bounced over his head as he stretched forward and forced umpire Aleem Dar to signal a wide.

In conditions which suited him, the same conditions in which the West Indies, without a spin bowler in their squad, played five pace bowlers, the same conditions in which Chanderpaul was attempting to bowl spin shortly after lunch on the second day, Panesar, revelling in conditions tailor-made for spin bowlers, took four wickets for 50 runs off 16.4 overs and six for 137 off 51.5 for a combined 10 for 187 off 68.3 overs.

During Chanderpaul's spell of long hops and full tosses, one commentator, after saying that it was disgraceful, remarked that such bowling would have been embarrassing even on the village greens of England.

It certainly was an embarrassment for West Indies cricket - for a team that once boasted Sonny Ramadhin and Alfred Valentine - those two little pals of mine, and Lance Gibbs.

Twiddling his thumbs

Even though he may not now be as good, while one like Dave Mohammed is sitting somewhere in Trinidad and Tobago twiddling his thumbs, Panesar, a left-arm spinner like Mohammad, is leading England's wicket-takers with 17 wickets from three Test matches - eight more than the West Indies leading bowler.

On top of that, where England have won two Test matches, the West Indies have not even won one.

It may not have mattered, but the defeat of the West Indies in this match can also be attributed to the selectors - including coach David Moore, who, according to Marlon Samuels, like his predecessor Bennett King, does not like him.

Apart from the fact that they were all the same, the selectors must be blamed for going into the Test match with five bowlers - three specialistspace bowlers, one pace bowling all-rounder, one so-called pace bowling all-rounder, with only five specialist batsmen, and that immediately after being dismissed for 146 and 141 and suffering their heaviest loss in history.

One never knows and especially so if the specialist batsman, Samuels, had been in for Daren Sammy, who celebrated his maiden Test with a haul of seven for 66 in England's second innings.

After falling short by 61 runs, after a good effort in the second innings by almost all their batsmen, their all-rounders and their wicketkeeper and after Chanderpaul was left stranded after a truly magnificent effort, another batsman may have been the difference between a surprising victory and as it turned out, the usual defeat.