Test #1836 West Indies in England 2007 (4^th Test) at Riverside Ground, Chester-le-Street

The latest test series between West Indies and England resulted in the same manner as did the every series in the new millennium. After winning the first test of the new millennium played at Edgbaston from June 15^th to 17 th inside three days by a huge margin of an innings and 93 runs, they are yet to register a test victory against England. West Indies went on to surrender The John Wisden Trophy in 2000 series by losing three of the next four tests with the rain ruined third test played at Old Trafford ending in a draw. Thus they ended their supremacy of last 27 years of 20^th century during which they never lost a test series to England.

Odds were never in their favor to regain the John Wisden Trophy even before they started the 2007 series. Yes, not even before Brian Lara announced his retirement from the international Cricket immediately after the World Cup debacle. However they did put up a good show in the first test at Lord’s though weather ruined the proceedings and helped West Indies in escaping the test match with a draw. If Chanderpaul’s absence in the 2^nd test was itself a major blow for the West Indies, they took another crushing blow when their captain Ramnaresh Sarwan suffered a series ending injury in the second test before even taking a batting stance. There after things went from bad to worse with Chris Gayle not being able to take off at all and their stop-gap skipper Daren Ganga having a horrible existence at the crease since taking over the captaincy with scores of 5 & 9, 5 & 0 , 0 & 6. The Brilliance of Bravo and Resilience of Chanderpaul could not stop West Indies from losing last three tests even though it looked as if West Indies might avoid a defeat while Chanderpaul and Bravo were batting in last two tests. So England extends their streak of not losing a test match to West Indies to sixteen and West Indies requires a tremendous amount of reversal in their cricketing fortunes even to dream of regaining the John Wisden trophy when they host England in 2009.

Following are some of the statistical highlights of the fourth test of the 2007 series:

Though England dominated the test series from every imaginable angle, one batsman they could not corner was Shivnarine Chanderpaul. Chanderpaul topped the batting averages for both sides but ended up on the losing side as he did in 2004 notching up plethora of test records in the process. He batted for more than 1000 minutes without getting dismissed while making 116* in the 2^nd innings of the 3^rd test at Old Trafford and 136* & 70 in the 4^th test at Chester-le-Street. This is the third time he recorded this feat in his test career. Only five other batsmen achieved this record in test history and none of them had done it more than once. Following is the list of all such occasions.