West Indies v England

Having lost a match they should have won, England achieved a rough sort of parity by winning a match they ought to have lost. The margin was precisely the same as it had been a week earlier and a few feet away. But all the fears that back-to-back Tests on the same ground would be tedious were proved groundless. This was a gloriously tense cricket match, which maintained its fascination until the final ball.

Many observers thought it was yet another case of a bad pitch producing a great game. Perhaps everyone was so conditioned by the previous two Tests that they had forgotten batting could ever be comfortable. However, this was a much kinder strip than its neighbour, a fact masked by a good deal of poor batsmanship. Slow, low, with only the occasional rogue ball, it was not dissimilar to a routine County Championship pitch.

That should have made England feel at home. But on a ground where no visiting team had won a Test in 21 years, where they had been slaughtered by Ambrose four years earlier and just been sandbagged yet again in the Second Test, they seemed to feel instead that the whole place was conspiring against them. That may explain a lot. It cannot explain why West Indies collapsed twice, pretty abjectly.

Both teams, quite consciously, had put off thoughts of team changes until they moved elsewhere, but England were forced into reselection when Hollioake withdrew because of back trouble. Ramprakash missed his chance because of flu, and Butcher came back. Atherton chose to bowl first, believing there would be early dampness. At 93 for one, though, West Indies seemed on the way at last to a regulation sort of Test score.

But Fraser and Caddick induced a barely explicable collapse: nine wickets for 66. Caddick's role was especially inexplicable, since his new-ball bowling had been dreadful. Fraser once again bowled searchingly and with hardly a bad ball in conditions he liked: still, West Indies should not have let him have match figures of nine for 80.

The bad news for England was that they had to face Ambrose before the close. He was at his most searching too, zeroing the ball in towards the right-handers' midriff - and early on the second day the score was 27 for four. Stewart and the middle order effected a minor recovery, but most got out softly, having done the hard work, and Atherton was left with the familiar feeling of being let down. England were left 14 behind; they hit only nine boundaries all innings.

Fraser, however, maintained his remarkable form. After West Indies had again started with a mixture of solidity and, from Lara, exuberance, he led the revival. This time his partner was Headley, who redeemed a hopeless first-day performance with some big-hearted bowling that reduced West Indies to 159 for eight. But Chanderpaul had shown that batsmen other than Lara could play shots. And Adams followed his example, and shepherded the tail to 210. In context, it looked plenty. Few thought that England could summon up the strength of character required to score 225 for victory. But, starting before the close on the third day, they had plenty of time and, in Atherton and Stewart, the men for the job.

They had to see off the front-line assault troops twice - first with the new ball, then again on the fourth morning - but they succeeded, staying together for almost four hours, and wrested the initiative with a remarkable combination of patience, determination and technical merit. But nothing ever seems simple for England. Showers intervened, enabling Ambrose and Walsh to stay fresh (they bowled 71 of the 108 overs); as the weather turned iffy, so did the batting - on this ground, England were superstitiously convinced that something was bound to go wrong. They had to return on the final day to finish the job and, even though only 38 were wanted and six wickets were left, it still seemed daunting. By now, the big crowds and noise of the weekend had long since vanished. But the outward calm masked extraordinary tension as, inch by inch, Butcher, the accidental participant in this match, led England towards victory.

They had been better at fielding and running between the wickets throughout. Fraser won the match award, having been denied it a week earlier; Stewart must have run him close, and Ambrose's abiding power was the most constant feature of a fluctuating contest. He took his total of victims in Queen's Park Tests to 54. On the first three days, crowds touched 20,000, and the ground was dominated by the noise of the Trini Posse, the West Indian answer to the Barmy Army, and their music. A white woman, assumed but never proved to be English, caused enormous offence to local opinion by running on to the field naked, carrying the Trinidadian flag. This is now considered humorous and routine in England, but West Indians were disgusted. - MATTHEW ENGEL.

Man of the Match: A. R. C. Fraser.

Close of play: First day, England 22-2 (A. J. Stewart 16*, D. W. Headley 1*); Second day, West Indies 71-2 (B. C. Lara 30*, K. C. G. Benjamin 0*); Third day, England 52-0 (M. A. Atherton 30*, A. J. Stewart 14*); Fourth day, England 187-4 (G. P. Thorpe 15*, M. A. Butcher 9*).