da gbg bet： Stunned
Alistair Campbel24-Mar-2000Stunned! I suppose this is the only word that can sum up the mood ofthe camp. “So close yet so far” — a cliche so often used yet onewhich offers no help. People who read this report who do not pridethemselves on knowing much about the great game will only seestatistics and probably wonder to themselves how a team chasing 99 towin a game failed to do so and how a team who had controlled the gamefor most of the match lose one hour of the game and lose the match.The answers do not immediately spring to mind, but I suppose that iswhy this is such a great game and why we as players train so hardjust to take part in matches such as this. Unfortunately somebody hadto lose, and on this occasion it was us. We need to feel honouredthat we were able to take part in such a fascinating and thrillingTest match.These are very philosophical words on my behalf, and the result abitter pill to swallow, but a pill that must be digested and passedout in order for us to refocus our attention on winning the next Testmatch to level the series. If this match showed us anything, it wasthat the two teams are evenly balanced and that whoever plays themore intense and disciplined cricket will emerge on top.Day five of the Test match started exactly as planned. Streak moppedup the last wicket in the first over over the day to have the WestIndies all out for 147. Streak’s figures of 5-27 was a brilliantreturn for some outstanding bowling. We knew the 99 needed forvictory was going to be a testing target on a deteriorating wicket.The ball was staying low, sometimes running along the ground. Someoneneeded to get in and bat through with the rest of the team chippingin around him.Grant Flower was doing very well, and at lunch we were 40 for 3, bothFlowers at the crease. A partnership here would see us through, andwe were still very much in the driving seat. What transpired in thenext two hours would go down in the annals of cricket history. In themidst of some great fast bowling, a deteriorating wicket and somemisfortune, we were bowled out for 63.The sensation was numbing, but one can’t help but think back to thelast ball and the scenes that followed. The West Indies players werejubilant, pulling stumps out of the ground, waving their hands in theair and gathering together to run a victory lap. The crowd wasprobably more ecstatic than the players — the music was raging, thespectators were dancing and hugging each other. They had waited solong for their team to do well in the face of what had happened tothem in the last two years, and without Lara they thought itimpossible.People say that West Indies cricket is in a crisis, a sentiment thatI partly agree with, although every nation goes through ups and downsand periods of rebuilding. But the passion that was evident on thatMonday afternoon can only lead to improving times in the West Indies.It was left for us to wonder what might have been after playing suchgood cricket for four days. A few interesting statistics to come outof the match were that this was the only side chasing under 100 runs in thesecond innings that had lost. It was the first time that Zimbabwehave been bowled out for under 100 in Test matches. A few otherinteresting facts were that the last 17 wickets fell for 93 runs, anindication of how the pitch played. And the last fact that made usfeel a little better was that in the last Test match played at thisground, the West Indies were bowled out for 51 by Australia in theirsecond innings.What is left is for us to put what happened firmly behind us and takethe numerous positives from the game into our next game. If you keepdoing the right things, everything will come right. This is my firmbelief, and hopefully in the next Test match, due to start on Fridayin Jamaica, we will be on the right side of what the papers here havedubbed “Miracle Monday”.