Ramnaresh Sarwan has held England at bay, scoring yet another century. He has reached 184 not out and helped the West Indies to all but avoid the follow-on (3 runs required with 5 wickets in hand). This is Sarwan’s fourth innings of the Test series and his worst effort has been 94. He has had scores of 107, 96, 106 before this Test. Unfortanately, he can’t officially claim to have joined the list of players to have scored a century in three consecutive Tests because of the 2nd Test – the Test that wasn’t.

Sarwan, almost 29, came onto the scene in mid-2000 at the age of just 19. He was regarded as a prodigious talent and was cause for quite some excitement. I don’t know if he received too much mentoring from Carl Hooper but he proceded to under achieve. He took over two years of being in and out (mostly in) the team, before he scored a Test century. To be honest, he has not ceased to under achieve until this series. This is his 14th century, in his 78th Test and his average is just over 41 – not bad numbers but certainly not stats of the super star that was expected.

Anyway, long may it last. Sarwan may yet be a super star – he is still a year younger that Marcus North and he has 77 Tests and over 5,000 runs on him!

On the other side of the Atlantic, Australia was busy smashing South Africa. It’s hard to believe but Australia is in a commanding position in the 1st Test. By a good team bowling effort, and despite Ricky Ponting’s butter fingers, and despite a wonderful, unbeaten century from ABD, South Africa trailed Australia by 246. They were not forced to follow-on and Australia reached 1/51 – a lead of 297, before the rain started. The main worry for Australia is the weather. The forecast for the next two days is bad and Ponting my be left with a delicate declaration decision. He won’t have the luxury of setting an impossible total. This may have been a time to enforce the follow-on and try to press home the advantage.

Encouraging for Australia was that Phil Hughes mad his first Test runs and hit seven fours in his 36 not out. All boundaries came with cuts and drives through the off-side and I have to say, he does look an exciting player. He probably reminds Michael Slater quite a lot of himself (looking in the mirror, of course).

In boring news closer to Australia, Martin Love (remember him?), in his final match, scored 219 not out versus the Blues.