Bushwacked!

Melbourne - Another day, another city, another collapse, another humbling defeat.

In what captain Jimmy Adams acknowledged is now a habit, the West Indies succumbed to a below-strength Victoria team by an innings and 63 runs with more than a day remaining at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) yesterday.

Their all-out second innings 114 was their lowest total against Victoria (known in domestic competition as the Bushrangers) on their 12 tours of this vast country and their first loss to the state since the inaugural trip in 70 years ago, in 1930-31.

It followed defeat in the opening first-class match against Western Australia and came three days before the first Test at Brisbane that looms with under-standable foreboding.

A minimum of 157 overs and maximum ten-and-a-quarter hours remained in the match when Victoria declared with a lead of 177 just before lunch.

The sun shone from a cloudless sky, the pitch had shed most of its demons of the first day, the outfield became faster by the over and the opportunity existed for the West Indies batsmen to spend meaningful preparation time in the middle.

None did.

It was all over in three hours and 46.3 overs, leaving another 18.3 on the day and 90 on the morrow unused.

The embarrassing reality is that it would have been even shorter but for off-spinner Colin Miller's missed return catch off Ridley Jacobs before he had got off the mark on his way to the topscore of 25.

The ball did deviate occasionally off the seam and the probing Victorian bowlers were supported by flawless catching and by umpiring that brought an end to proceedings by giving Merv Dillon and Jacobs caught at gully and slip off the boot.

But it was another in the continuing succession of West Indies batting debacles. Only Jacobs stayed longer than an hour as wickets tumbled to the varied bowling through a combination of un-warranted strokes and no strokes at all.

The senior batsmen - Sherwin Campbell, Brian Lara, Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Adams - all batted for more than three-quarters of an hour but none for more than an hour.

More distressingly, Daren Ganga and Ram-naresh Sarwan were des-patched without scoring, Sarwan's second duck of the match.

Their deportment revealed that both prom-ising young batsmen had been shorn of their self-belief in the two weeks since they joined the team from a stint with the Australian Academy in Adelaide.

Ganga got through two anxious overs before lunch, following the declaration, but had not scored from 18 balls when, bat well away from body, he sliced a square-drive off the left-arm fast bowler Matthew Inness high to gully.

Sarwan arrived at 58 for three after Campbell had edged Damien Fleming's outswinger to wicket-keeper Darren Berry and Lara had pulled an innocuous short ball from medium-pacer Ben Oliver straight to wide mid-on.

The young Guyanese was a first-ball victim in the first innings and approached the five balls he faced as if they were terrorist bombs guaran-teed to explode on impact.

As he withdrew his bat out of the line of one on off-stump from Oliver, the ball deflected off the back of the bat and flew into the safe hands of second slip.

When Shivnarine Chanderpaul's loose drive off Miller found cover's waiting clutches, the West Indies were 72 for five and depending on captain Adams, Jacobs and the fast bowlers to at least mount a fight.

They never came close.