West Indies struck down by Warne and dud umpires
Shane Warne starred today as Australia stand on the brink of clean-sweeping the Frank Worrell trophy. He took 6 for 80 and brought his 2005 tally up to 84 wickets, bowling through 2 whole sessions for 29 overs without taking a break. Why not - he gets a fortnight's break while the Aussies tour New Zealand. If Warne takes just 2 more wickets over the next two Tests against South Africa, he'll break Dennis Lillee's record for most wickets in a calendar year. His only blemish was being reported for dissent after sulking when an appeal was turned down.
But the real star for Australia today was the umpires Billy Bowden and Aleem Dar. The West Indies best batsmen were struck down as much by bad umpiring as by good bowling. One person who would be against using the 3rd umpire or Hawkeye to decide LBW decisions is Brett Lee. Just how many wickets did he take this series with dodgy LBW decisions? His in-swinging yorkers look dangerous and they're great deliveries but invariably they're going past the leg stump. In the case of Ramnaresh Sarwan, the ball barely struck him in front of leg stump - it certainly wasn't hitting the wickets. Dwayne Smith hit the ball before it hit his pad only to be given out LBW. And Shivnarine Chanderpaul hit the ball into the ground before it bounced back onto his gloves and into the fielder's hands. What's the point of having neutral umpires when they seem to favour the home team anyway - it happened in England and it's happening here. If they used Simon Taufel, at least they might get some more accurate decisions. I found the umpiring annoying and frustrating and that was just cause I wanted the match to last to the 5th day. Imagine how much worse if the umpiring cost us something greater... like the Ashes. I'm fast becoming an advocate for more use of the 3rd umpire in LBW and bat pad decisions.
The match could've ended a day early if it wasn't for another fighting effort from Dwayne Bravo and Denesh Ramdin - once again, their partnership ensured the match went past day 4. And the West Indies bowlers were outstanding in the last session - they tied the Aussies down, took 2 wickets and were unlucky not to get Hayden out (dudded by the umpires again). Considering the frailty of our middle order and Australia's tendency to fall apart chasing small 4th innings totals, there is the slight chance of a few hiccups tomorrow as we chase the remaining 106 runs but most likely, it will end a couple of overs after lunch.
| Posted by JC on Mon 28 Nov |  17 comments |
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