Related Links : Sri Lanka in West Indies 2007/08 : Scorecard
Test Cricket was at its best at the Queen’s Park Oval in Port of Spain. On a pitch that had good bit of life for the bowlers, West Indies’ bowling came good and when it mattered, the batsmen delivered to chase a competitive target of 253 to draw the 2-Test Series 1-1. Ramnaresh Sarwan was the architect of the win with a half century in the first innings and a brilliant hundred in the chase.
The West Indian bowlers started off poorly in the first hour of the Test Match after Gayle had asked SL to bat first. The Sri Lankan openers put on a fifty stand but the bowling came good for the home side. Sri Lanka were put into trouble losing four wickets quickly to find themselves at 117 for 5. A resurrection act from Dilshan (62 from 60) and Chamara Silva (76 from 108) rescued them to post a first innings total of 278. Fidel Edwards, who missed the first test fired on cylinders with 4 for 84. Powell and Taylor picked up a couple of wickets each.
West Indies in their first innings were also off to a good start but like their opposition lost their way. By the end of the second day, Sri Lanka were back in the game strongly as they had West Indies at 268 for 7. West Indies could manage a slender lead of 16 as they got folded quickly on the third day. The top scorer for them was Sarwan with 57. Openers Gayle and Chattergoon struck forties while demoted to the middle order, Devon Smith came up with a precious 47. Muralitharan did the most damage for the Lankans with 5 for 79 in nearly 30 overs.
The morning session of the third day’s play was mind blowing with as many as eight wickets going down! Sri Lanka looked to be out of the contest at 78 for 5! The entire top order failed under testing conditions. The West Indian bowlers couldn’t wrap up things though as the pair of Thilan Samaraweera and Chaminda Vaas applied themselves to repair the Lankan innings. As time went by, it was looking very difficult to dislodge the pair and the lead for the visitors grew nicely. Chris Gayle came to the rescue by getting the wicket of Vaas, who had made 45 in a 7th wicket stand of 138. Samaraweera went onto make a superb 125 (from 199 balls with 18 fours) before being run out. The Sri Lankans got bowled out for 268 with Jerome Taylor taking 4 for 52 and the rest of the bowlers chipping in as well.
The fourth day’s play started to favour Sri Lanka with the openers including Chris Gayle falling cheaply. West Indies were in trouble at 24 for 2 chasing 253. The repair work was then carried on by Sarwan who got a bit of support from Samuels but the latter didn’t last long. At 73 for 3, everything depended on the two Guyanese batsmen in Sarwan and Chanderpaul. And both batsmen kept their cool and saw off any danger from the Sri Lankan bowling. Once a batsman got settled on this wicket then it was not that easy to get him out. That is what had happened to Sarwan and Chanderpaul and their team as a result were well on course of a win. Muralitharan finally came with the breakthrough with the wicket of Sarwan. But by then Sarwan had made 102 (from 172 balls with 15 fours) to take Windies just 23 runs short of victory. Chanderpaul with an unbeaten 86 (from 146 balls with 7 fours) ensured that there was no drama unfolding and the West Indies wrapped up the match with the loss of just 4 wickets. Ronnie Sarwan was adjudged as both the Man of the Match and also the Player of the Series.