West Indies rue batting lapses

Even West Indies' best day in the series so far did not leave them fully satisfied after they took steps forward but failed to make the final leap in an ongoing exercise in improvement. After not managing a single individual score of at least 40 in the first Test, followed by the two centuries that propped up a batting collapse in the second, West Indies had contributions throughout the line-up on the first day of the third Test. They saw out the day after Denesh Ramdin asked his men to lay down a marker by batting first.

Ramdin's previous two victories of the coin have served to save West Indies from the South African attack at their hungriest - the first morning of a match. His third was braver. On what Leon Johnson, one of the two half-centurions, called a "pretty flat pitch with not a lot of moisture in it", Ramdin was willing to front up first and test his line-up against the best in the business.

For the best part of the day, they did. Kraigg Brathwaite and Devon Smith saw off the new ball and negotiated the early danger, when the ball threatened to graze the bat almost every time it went past. Smith settled in and should have gone on to stay there all day. In a hurry to reach a half-century, however, he played a shot he should not have attempted, particularly on the ball before lunch.

Johnson dug in with a bit more grit but was fooled by a Simon Harmer slider. Marlon Samuels dug in with a bit more defiance but was frustrated by a dry period. Ramdin dug in with a sense of responsibility and shouldered it until the second new ball. All three could have gone on to something more and that tinged West Indies' day with regret.

"We can't be totally happy with guys not carrying on but as a team we're happy," Johnson said. "It's the first time we batted out 90 overs in the series. We showed the kind of fight that we've been talking about."

West Indies faced 60.2 and 42.3 overs in the first Test and had been at the crease for 79 in the second when no further play was possible, so lasting a day could be seen as a mark of progress. But they also regressed. After going from no fifties in the first Test to two hundreds in the second, the issue of longevity cropped up again on the first day in Cape Town.

"When guys get in to 30s and 40s, there seem to be some concentration problems and little lapses," Johnson said. And he thinks there is nothing that can really be done about that unless the individuals concerned do it for themselves: "We've done a lot of work technically but not a lot of work mentally. Mental preparation for cricket is something you do by yourself and you improve as you go along."

With inexperience still threading its way through West Indies, only more time will improve their temperament. For now, they have a more pressing task. Having chalked up a score fairly close to the first-day average of 272 for 7 at this venue, they are very much in the game but need the tail to wag more vigorously then it has done so far.

"We always thought we would get between 350 and 400. The batters to come are very capable as well," Johnson said.

West Indies lengthened their line-up by including Jermaine Blackwood in place of Kenroy Peters and so far, he seems to have justified the selection. More important than his overnight score of 45 is that he has faced 102 balls and seems to be ushering the tail through the second new ball and into the best batting period at Newlands. If West Indies last beyond lunch on day two, they may yet find reason to be completely pleased at the end.