All over again

The script was all too depressingly familiar.

The West Indies, once more let down by their batting and dismissed for a measly total.

The ageless, lionhearted Courtney Walsh striving to restore the balance with three wickets without conceding a run off his first seven overs, the second and third with successive balls.

England regaining the initiative as Alec Stewart, at 38 only six months Walsh's junior, survived a hat-trick to capitalise on abysmal West Indies' cricket once Walsh was rested. He fittingly celebrated his 100th Test with a pulsating, unbeaten 105, sharing an unbroken partnership of 179 with Marcus Trescothick, the left-handed opener in his first Test.

Stewart's exceptional landmark, reached with 3.2 overs remaining and acclaimed with a prolonged, standing ovation from a capacity crowd of 19 000, and his dominant stand with Trescothick carried England from the Walsh-induced trouble of 17 for three to 196 by the close.

It placed them 39 ahead with seven wickets to the good. The signals for the West Indies were ominous as Stewart was decimating their wayward support bowling and he and his young partner were putting together 149 in the final session of 36 overs at more than four runs an over.

They were unmistakeably the same as those that led to the debacles of 10 successive Test defeats on the last three tours, of Pakistan, South Africa and New Zealand.

The euphoria of the home victories over Zimbabwe and Pakistan and the innings triumph in the first Test triumph here under a new captain and new management have evaporated following the shock of the all-out 54 and defeat in the second Test at Lord's. It will take a swift reversal in attitude, as much as form, to save this match, not to say the series.

In a television interview aired here on the opening day, Curtly Ambrose made some telling comments about the lack of support he and Walsh have received from the younger support bowlers.

'It's time for the youngsters to come through and take over the mantle but they're not ready,' he said. 'Courtney and I are still expected to do most of the work. That's unfair because the youngsters should be doing the bulk of it but that's just not happening.'

The point was emphasised again yesterday.

With the quality bowling that has made him Test cricket's leading wicket-taker, Walsh, the game's oldest campaigner and with 20 more Tests than even Stewart, sent England into an early tailspin with three wickets in his first seven overs, all maidens. At 17 for three, the West Indies' 157 didn't seem quite so inadequate.

What followed, from Franklyn Rose and Reon King, was another letdown. Rose was taken for 66 from 14 overs in two separate spells, with seven fours, and King for 23 from the only four overs Adams was confident enough to offer him.

It meant Adams himself was obliged to take the ball for 11 overs of left-arm spin. Even Ambrose seemed fed up by the state of affairs, conceding 38 off his last eight overs after yielding only two off his opening burst of five overs.

It is true that the luck was not with Rose.

He had captain Nasser Hussain caught at longleg in his first over off a setup hook, only for Walsh to step back across the ropes as he held the ball chest-high. In his next over, Trescothick, then 3, was badly missed at squareleg by Wavell Hinds off a pull shot that came directly to him but from the difficult backdrop of the crowd.

When the partnership was in full flow and Trescothick 48, his miscued hook off him dropped between himself and Walsh at midon.

But, as has been the case throughout the series, there was too much rubbish offered up, much of it short and wide, and Stewart, especially, and Trescothick, took full toll.

Only two of Stewart's 13 boundaries were streaky, both off Ambrose's third spell. Trestothick overcame a stuttering start that took him 25 balls to get off the mark, hoisting Adams for a leg-side six to raise his 50 and counting six fours as well.

The contest was all so different once Walsh was operating.

As he has slown with the passing years, he has honed his more basic skills and every attribute was on display as England set out in pursuit of the West Indies total.

Mike Atherton, England's other Test centurion, had his parade spoiled in front of his home crowd as a perfectly pitched leg-cutter drew him into defence, flicking the outside edge on its way low to the safe hands of Sherwin Campbell at second slip.

Having escaped his hook off Rose, Hussain got two wicked balls in quick succession. The first, wide of off-stump, scuttled along the ground through to Ridley Jacobs. The second, pounded in on off-stump, climbed steeply to take the shoulder of a bat hastily raised in selfpreservation. The deflection lobbed to gully.

As the left-handed Graham Thorpe took guard and settled for his first ball, Walsh hatched a plot that he executed with perfection. With no perceptible change in action, he released the ball from loose fingers and directed it unerringly at the base of the middle-stump, utterly confusing Thorpe with the change of pace.

Walsh didn't bother to wait for umpire Peter Willey's mandatory confirmation of the lbw decision. Besides himself with the sheer cunning of the delivery, he ran helter skelter around the field, pursued by jubilant teammates. And he still hadn't conceded a single run.

It was a spontaneous demonstration that revealed another vital reason why Walsh has managed to keep going as long as he has. The fact is he still gets a buzz from the game that has been his life since he was a boy, sending down leg-breaks at Melbourne Club in Kingston.

His spell of 11 overs exended to tea but, afterwards, his teammates couldn't emulate his efforts. As the England pair prospered, the fielding became ragged, the spirit visibly sank and a merry crowd enjoyed themselves.

They had done so for much of a cool, gray, overcast day.

Resuming at 87 for four, Adams and Ramnaresh Sarwan batted through the first hour with only a couple of alarms. The most bizarre was when Adams, who had not added to his overnight 16, played Andy Caddick back into his stumps but the bails remained in their grooves.

Sarwan provided the strokes, adding 19 to Adams' five at the first refreshment break after an hour, but the little 20-year-old righthanded had been floored by Craig White's swift blow to the rib-cage just before the interruption.

A cracked rib was revealed later on the x-ray and the pain might have been affecting him when, first ball after the resumption, he missed one from Dominic Cork that would have hit off-and-middle.

His 36, begun in the trouble of 47 for four, was eventually topscore and no one else batted with nearly the same aplomb against intense England fast bowling and fielding.

Once he had gone, the remainder of the innings quickly followed, the last six wickets realising only 39 runs.

Jacobs was quickly yorked by Caddick, Adams provided Thorpe with his third third slip catch of the innings and the pacy White with his first wicket in four Tests against the West Indies and Hussain epitomised England's fielding with a magnificent leaping catch at midon off Ambrose's firm blow off Caddick.

Cork rounded off things with his third and fourth wickets soon after lunch so that, once more, the bowlers were left with the job of retrieving the situation. Only Walsh showed up.