In scoring 291, Ramnaresh Sarwan managed to equal Viv Richards' Test best, also made against England. There is an utter assurance about his play, the prospect of a big score not so much a possibility as an inevitability, writes Mike Atherton in the Times.
He was helped somewhat by England’s tactics. In his first 200 runs, there was one leg-side boundary: the rest, all 22 of them, came through the off side, an indication that England had bowled to his strengths for long periods. For the most part, England’s line should be straight to him, their length full. Sarwan is a beautiful player through the off side and England seemed happy to encourage the sight of him cutting and driving them to distraction. His technique is such that, by keeping his back foot on leg stump and moving his front foot across his crease, he positions himself to hit through cover, point and backward of point. He thrives on width, being as brutal on the cut as anyone.
How does a captain keep his fielding side alert when the score is past 600? In the Guardian Vic Marks writes that Warwickshire, when stuck in a wicketless phase of play under Dermot Reeve's captaincy, used to pass an imaginary football from fielder to fielder, presumably to raise a smile and keep them awake. But that was hardly appropriate under the eagle eyes of the cameras in a Test match.
Soon the captain becomes more of a foreman than a strategist. It is his job to ensure the punishment is handed out equably and that the part-timers bear some of the burden. Hence Paul Collingwood and Ravi Bopara were in tandem for much of the afternoon and there was some ugly off-spin from Kevin Pietersen and Owais Shah. The bowlers could hope only to keep their figures respectable and that the third new ball would do the trick.
The Telegraph's Steve James is bored in Barbados, having to watch a drudge of runs collected on a pitch with all the liveliness of a sleeping kitten.
Things are falling into place for West Indies now that their keeper Denesh Ramdin has scored his maiden Test century, writes Tony Cozier in the Trinidad & Tobago Express.
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