West Indies confident of record chase

The West Indian camp sounded confident of a win ahead of the final day of the Test at Old Trafford, needing 154 runs with five wickets remaining to complete the highest fourth innings run-chase in the history of Test cricket.

"I think we're in it," said David Moore, the West Indies coach. "They [England] have only taken two wickets in the last two sessions [on day four]. We batted very well and we've got two quality batsmen in at the moment." Moore hoped that Denesh Ramdin and Shivnarine Chanderpaul could keep batting for as long as possible to get West Indies as close to the target and then leave it up to Darren Sammy and the tail.

Daren Ganga, captain of the West Indies, also sounded pleased with the day's proceedings. "This has been a very good day," he said. "The mere fact that we only lost our wickets today was definitely a positive for us." Ganga felt his batsmen had stuck to the task in the uphill battle to chase a score of over 400. "Shivnarine Chanderpaul led the way with his knock and all the other guys supported. Runako Morton laid that foundation, Dwayne Bravo and Denesh Ramdin all contributed."

Looking ahead to the final day's play, an optimistic Ganga said, "The game would be over probably in two sessions. If we can bat for two sessions I am sure we will win the Test match."

Shivnarine Chanderpaul, unbeaten on 81, is the man on whom West Indian hopes will be pinned on to finish the job. Talking about the approach of the batsmen on day four, Chanderpaul said, "We were looking for partnerships and to take it session by session and that was how we basically approached it." When asked about the approach for the final day, he added, "We will go out and continue doing the same thing and look to bat out the first two sessions. If we do that we will be close to winning the game."

Moore justified the confidence in Chanderpaul by saying he was a classic Test batsman as he loved batting with his back against the wall. "He is underrated and underestimated and people do that at their own peril, Chanderpaul is a world-class cricketer."

Moore felt the West Indian lower-order could provide able support to Chanderpaul. "Sammy is very gutsy as you can see with the ball, he's very passionate and certainly he has the ability to support Shiv. We're looking forward for 9, 10 and 11 to contribute if they have to but we're looking forward to knock it off before that."

Expressing his view about chasing the record, Moore said, "It would be fantastic if we can do it. In retrospect if we had scored more runs in the first innings and batted a little longer we would have been a lot closer than we are already so we've got those things to contemplate later on but at the moment we certainly looking to chase down the target."

Incidentally, West Indies hold the current record for the highest fourth-innings total to win a Test, having scored 418 for 7 against Australia in 2003 at St John's, Antigua. Chanderpaul had scored a century in that match as well.