Britain’s athletes have again shown at the Olympics an island race’s talent for performing on water, but if you want the stuff walked on there’s currently none better than the England cricket team. Yesterday, with another crushing victory in the fourth npower Test completed an hour after tea, Michael Vaughan’s magnificent XI completed the Magnificent Seven, a clean sweep of all home Tests this season that satisfyingly incorporated a 4-0 whitewash of West Indies, once-feared tormentors now laid miserably low by amateurish leadership and indiscipline.
Only Sri Lanka, who beat the undistinguished trio of West Indies, Zimbabwe and Bangladesh eight times in 2001-02, can rival such a feat and it is one that will make the rest of the cricket world sit up and take notice, especially South Africa, who host England later this year, and Australia, who come here next summer. So irresistible has been England’s cricket that it is still hard to credit it is them doing it and not the opposition. Amazement still lingers in the air.
After Steve Harmison’s stellar performance on Friday — which lifted him to the top of the PricewaterhouseCoopers world ratings, it was announced last night — it was the turn of James Anderson, a largely anonymous figure in this series, to take the plaudits with four for 52, his best Test figures in more than a year.
West Indies were dismissed for 318, meaning England were left with the token task of scoring one run to complete their second whitewash in a series of four or more matches. The previous instance came in five matches at home to India in 1959. Amid a carnival atmosphere, Marcus Trescothick drove Fidel Edwards’s third ball to the cover boundary before hoisting his arms into the air in celebration of a 10-wicket win.
Recovering from century-maker Chris Gayle hitting him down the ground for six in his first over, Anderson bowled with verve during 12 overs off the reel in the morning to claim the key wickets of Brian Lara and Gayle, both caught in the slips driving at balls slanted across them, and came back after tea to have Corey Collymore caught behind and send Edwards’s leg stump cartwheeling. By the end, the spring was back in his step, if not quite the old pace in his bowling as the speedometer remained stubbornly in the lower 80s.
Harmison claimed just one scalp but it took his haul in the summer’s Tests to 38 and his bag for the year to 59, within striking range of Ian Botham’s calendar-year record for England of 66, set in 1978. His performance lifted him above Muttiah Muralitharan in the world ratings, the first English bowler to hold No 1 spot since Botham. Andrew Flintoff was named man of the series for his 387 runs, 14 wickets and five catches.
It was an efficient team effort with the ball, backed by smart catching to whittle out opponents on what remained an excellent batting pitch. Several West Indians got a start yesterday but none was able to play the big innings required if their side was to set England any sort of target.
How West Indies were dismissed for 152 on Friday on such a surface defies belief, but second time around they showed more resolve and might have taken the game into a fourth day had they had more fortune with the umpiring.
Dwayne Bravo, given out leg-before shouldering arms for a gutsy 54, and Shivnarine Chanderpaul, adjudged caught behind, will both consider themselves unfortunate, especially as they put together the best stand of the innings, 82 in two hours. Bravo did as much as anyone to deny Harmison and hit him for boundaries in four successive overs before falling to the first ball after the mid- afternoon drinks break.
Earlier, the main resistance came in somewhat differing style from Gayle, who blazed to a century off 80 balls, the second-fastest ever made in a Test on English soil. Of the 87 balls he faced, he hit 17 of them for four and one for six, a glorious chancer’s innings that hardly set the right tone for the innings. Gayle swung merrily for two hours 20 minutes, spending 25 minutes less at the crease than Chanderpaul, who scored only 32 but in far more appropriate fashion. Chanderpaul occupied the crease longer than any of his teammates for the fourth time in the series and deservedly took his team’s series award.
With a fierce pull against Anderson and successive boundaries, a pull and a straight drive, in Flintoff’s first over, Gayle swept to his century, which he greeted by leaping in the air and screaming as though he had won the World Cup, which it is safe to say was not how Gilbert Jessop behaved when he smashed a hundred against Australia in 76 balls on this ground 102 years ago.
Scarcely less bizarre was the performance of Dwayne Smith, disgracefully absent the previous day, but who now came in and defied doctor’s instructions to nurse his strained side. Advised not to play extravagant shots, he confined himself to swinging three fours and a six before drilling to point.
Following such gross humiliation, there will be speculation about Brian Lara’s future as captain. The fight his players showed in Manchester, suggesting that he was indeed capable of inspiring them, was strikingly lacking here and, the emergence of Dwayne Bravo apart, they will return home for a few days’ rest before the ICC Champions Trophy with very little to show for their efforts.
The case for a change of leadership is overwhelming. West Indies have lost more Tests (23) under Lara than any Test side under any captain in history; before yesterday, he shared this ignominious record with Australia’s Allan Border, who did lead his country the small matter of 93 times compared to Lara’s 40. However, the removal of the ineffectual Gus Logie as coach in favour of a tougher disciplinarian from overseas is more likely and it might be a question of whether Lara and the new man feel they could work together. There is time to regroup. West Indies do not have another Test series for six months, and with central contracts about to be introduced, it is an ideal time to start moulding a new generation.
Whatever happens, this was Lara’s last Test match in England. That was plain from the way he took his leave of the field — waving his bat to the whole ground — after edging a drive at Anderson low to first slip in the eighth over of the day. He never got into his stride, adding only 14 to his overnight single. At 35, he will be too old come the tour of 2010; there are signs that his powers are on the wane. Set aside his 400 on an Antiguan featherbed — a big exception, I admit — Lara averages 26 in seven Tests against England this year and this was the first time in six series he failed to take a century off them. He departed to a heartfelt ovation, having entertained English crowds as royally as anyone of the past 10 years.
