West Indies batting in need of recharging

Brian Lara and Co may have more need of the particular electronic item after their batting looked tired, and at times out of touch at Soweto Oval yesterday before your typical thunderstorm ended the start to the controversial West Indies tour of South Africa before it sparked into life.

And all the symbolism was washed away on a water-logged outfield which looked more in keeping with a Colombo test venue in the middle of a monsoon season than the pride and joy of the Gauteng youth programme. It also forced the cancellation of the State President, Nelson Mandela, who had planned to drop in on the match and say hello to the visitors.

There was some nice strokeplay from Lara: a couple of text book cover drives in an innings of 65 off 60 balls against a bowling attack which was largely of the pop gun variety. He was dropped twice and battled at times to get in tune with the slow pace of the pitch.

Although the bowlers performance was hardly, it also meant that even with a scoreline of 43 for three at one stage there was no need for the tourists to panic before about 1 200 mainly black students and any number of officials.

Rather it was Lara's deputy, Carl Hooper, and the dapper left-hander, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, who attracted attention with some fancy strokes and footwork after the Gauteng skipper, Adam Bacher, mixed up the bowling to give most of his charges a chance. There also seemed to be a general communication mix up as well as Nic Pothas was down as the captain only for Bacher, directing operations from mid-off, to emerge as the real leader of the pack.

None of which stopped Hooper from showing off his world class ability and why he is now among the top 10 test batsmen. He scored 60 and Chanderpaul a neat 34 in a smoothly run, well-organised partnership which added 71 runs to a batting-performance which had previously stuttered along.

Hooper's driving was neat and the straight-drive for six was a warning to South-African bowlers not to bowl too full to the big Guyanan.

Perhaps another warning which should be heeded by organisers of the other development games during this tour is the number of wides bowled. There were 23 before the rain came. Malan Morkel and Zander de Bruyn were the two worst offenders with seven and six apiece.

Goolam Bodi, however, enjoyed himself, although he has bowled better. His return of three for 38 in 10 overs cannot be sneezed at considering the batsmen he bowled to. The left-arm wrist spinner certainly looked a better bowler than a month ago when playing for Gauteng B against Northerns B at LC de Villiers in a friendly.