The curse of Trinidad struck England again yesterday when West Indies, against all the odds and with a depth of character that many thought might be beyond this side, won the second Test by three wickets with virtually two sessions in hand.
Asked to make 282 to win, the highest score of the match, they dragged themselves from the depths of 124 for five reached on Sunday afternoon and 181 for five overnight to attain their goal 20 minutes after lunch. England managed just two wickets, both to Dean Headley just before lunch.
Only once previously on this ground (and only 20 times in almost 1,400 Tests anywhere for that matter) has a larger total been made to win and it may yet prove to be a watershed for West Indian cricket. In the aftermath of their Pakistan disaster, the fiasco at Sabina Park and with a new captain, Brian Lara, straining for credibility on his home turf, they could ill-afford to lose.
The celebrations in Trinidad, a country that requires little encouragement for excess at this carnival time of year, would have been long and hard, and over again the toast would have been Carl Hooper - Cool Carl - and the diminutive wicketkeeper David Williams, Trinidadian himself, whose stirring sixth-wicket partnership of 129 carried West Indies to within spitting distance of victory.
Hooper, vice-captain now and with all the responsibilities that go with it, cast off his impetuous role of previous years to bat for 10 minutes short of six hours in making an unbeaten 94. Time may dictate not just that this was Hooper's finest innings, but one of the great innings in history.
Faced with a pitch that had dominated the game, on which no batsman felt secure, and on which it remains a miracle that no bones were broken, he compiled a chanceless innings, virtually without fault. Honour dictated that he should hit the winning runs, and he did so with a gentle elegant push down the pitch to catch Phil Tufnell's looping spin on the full and ease it gently past mid-off.
For 220 minutes, Williams kept him company, and if England failed to take two chances offered by him, while twice also impassioned and apparently justified shouts for lbw were ignored by Steve Bucknor, he showed guts beyond the call, an organised technique, and, particularly when presented with the chance on leg stump, no little flair. His innings of 65 was far and away his highest score of a brief Test career, and ended only by Graham Thorpe's catch to first slip.
England must now re-group and think long and hard about a game that was there for the taking, and which yet again slipped from their grasp. This wound to the pride was certainly self-inflicted. A winning habit really is addictive, and England, for all their one-off triumphs, have yet to be hooked. Mike Atherton, drained in defeat, confessed that the game had been `thrown away". He was not wrong.
When the fourth day began, his side were 242 runs ahead, on a poor pitch with six second-innings wickets in hand. That should have been a springboard to a win. Instead, they collapsed against Curtly Ambrose armed with an old ball and then, when the indefatigable Angus Fraser had pulled them back into the match, allowed the fish to slip from the hook.
Fraser's contribution to the match has been immense, from his stout 90-minute rearguard action in England's first innings that helped them to an invaluable lead, to his magnificent 8 for 53 in the first West Indian innings and three in the second.
With 11 for 110 in the match, he did not deserve to lose. And yet, for all his heart and awesome gut-busting effort, the paradox is that he might have won the game with the first ball of the day and did not. It was a loosener, which Williams, taken aback by the lack of pace maybe, chipped gently back to the bowler's right. Fraser stuck out a giant mitt but the ball tumbled to earth.
Perhaps the most poignant comment on the day, however, came when with 11 runs needed, and all patience lost with his other seamers, Atherton called Fraser back for a final fling. His first ball kept low, scuttled through to Jack Russell, who then let it through his legs and it hit Russell's own helmet that he had placed on the ground behind him. Five byes were the result and that was bad enough. Had Benjamin got the faintest touch, the runs would have counted against Fraser.
WEST INDIES v ENGLAND (Trinidad) Overnight: England 214 (N Hussain 61 no, A Stewart 50) and 258 (A J Stewart 73; C Ambrose 5-52). West Indies 191 (B Lara 55; A Fraser 8-53) and 181-5 (S Williams 62). WEST INDIES - Second Innings C Hooper not out - 94 D Williams c Thorpe b Headley - 65 C Ambrose c Russell b Headley - 1 K Benjamin not out - 6 Extras (b10, lb8, nb7) - 25 - Total (7 wkts, 98.2 overs) - 282 Fall: 1-10, 2-68, 3-120, 4-121, 5-124, 6-253, 7259. Did not bat: N McLean, C Walsh. Bowling: Headley 16-2-68-3, Caddick 16-258-0, Tufnell 34.2-9-69-1, Fraser 27-8-57-3, Hollioake 5-0-12-0.
Umpires: S A Bucknor and S Venkataraghavan.
West Indies bt England by 3 wkts
