England get in the swing

12 April 2012

England's swing bowlers claimed two crucial breakthroughs as West Indies continued to battle towards a competitive total in the final npower Test.

Resuming the third day of the rain-hit Test at Chester-le-Street on 132 for four, England needed Matthew Hoggard and Ryan Sidebottom to make key breakthroughs in the morning session as West Indies reached 211 for six at lunch.

Once again Shivnarine Chanderpaul was the mainstay of their innings and, having batted for 15 hours in the series prior to today, finished unbeaten on 92 at the interval after over four hours of the defiance at the crease.

Chanderpaul had hoped to continue his productive partnership with Dwayne Bravo when play resumed, but the stand was broken just five overs into the day.

Bravo had added just one run to his overnight 43 when he attempted to pull a full-length Hoggard delivery which took out his leg-stump off an inside edge.

But Chanderpaul found another willing ally in Marlon Samuels, brought into the side to replace injured all-rounder Darren Sammy, who resisted England for a further 17 overs.

Resisting his natural instinct to play shots, Samuels battled for 73 minutes for his 19 runs - although he did almost make the fatal error of running out Chanderpaul on 86, who managed to recover his ground at the non-striker's end before Kevin Pietersen's throw from point.

Samuel's resistance was finally broken in the next over when he toppled over in his crease and was bowled around his legs by left-arm seamer Sidebottom.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Sign up you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy notice .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in