Related Links : West Indies in England 2007 : Scorecard
Monty Panesar took his 6th five-wicket haul to crush the West Indies on the fifth and final day at Chester-le-Street. Monty’s destructive spell got the batsmen to chase an easy target of 110 with plenty of time left. England won the fourth and final Test by 7 wickets despite losing more than one and a half days’ play because of rain. England have made it 3-0 in this four-match series. Shivnarine Chanderpaul was the only resistance that England had to break during the final day’s play.
The final day’s play started with West Indies in a good chance of drawing the test as they had seven wickets standing. Chris Gayle who scored a half century on the fourth day gave a bad start falling Matthew Hoggard without adding anything to his overnight score of 52. But that was the only wicket to fall in the first session as Chanderpaul and Bravo once again put on a fighting stand leaving the English bowlers to work extremely hard.
In the second session, once Monty got rid of Bravo for 43, the rest of the batting crumbled under pressure. The two key players – Marlon Samuels and Denesh Ramdin failed to live to their potential. Both were outsmarted by Monty Panesar which left Windies at 175 for 7 which gave them a lead of 62. Chanderpaul with some calculated risks took the lead past the hundred which was also because of the support he received from the no. 11 Corey Collymore. Chanderpaul got 70 from 163 balls with 6 fours before he was clean bowled in an attempted sweep shot to a ball that turned sharply from the rough. This wicket was also the fifth for Panesar who bowled just 16 overs for that! Windies lasted just 64 overs in which they got 222 leaving a small target of 110.
England had a little more than a session’s play to get to their target. They knocked the runs at over 5.00 runs per over despite losing two early wickets that of Cook and Strauss. Michael Vaughan took them to victory with an unbeaten 48 from 51 balls. Kevin Pietersen missed out as he got out to Gayle with just five runs to get. Pietersen got 28. England took 21.4 overs to get to the 110. The Man of the Match was Shivnarine Chanderpaul for his hundred in the first innings and today’s half century. He also shared the Man of the Series award with Monty Panesar.