Tigers battle for survival

West Indies batsman Shivnarine Chanderpaul sweeps the ball during his unbeaten knock of 101 in the second and final Test against Bangladesh in St Lucia yesterday. He was third time lucky in the series after being stranded twice on 85 and 84 respectively in his previous two innings before finally getting his 30th Test ton. Photo: AFP

Having been set an improbable target of 489 runs yesterday, survival will be the key for Bangladesh's batsman for the rest of the second Test at the Beausejour Stadium in St Lucia. In their bid to achieve their target the Tigers reached a 114 for 2 at tea on day 4 yesterday.

After the West Indies declared at 269 for 4 in the morning session, the visitors lost Shamsur Rahman and Anamul Haque before lunch. After lunch Tamim Iqbal and Mominul Haque shared a 66-run stand and ensured that there were no further hiccups. The only chance of the session for the West Indies came by when Mominul was dropped at first slip off Jerome Taylor.

Earlier West Indian skipper Denesh Ramdin declared their second innings soon after 40-year-old batsman Shivnarine Chanderpaul reached his 30th Test hundred.

With the huge job in hand, Shamsur Rahman decided to go for the kill by hitting boundaries one after another but he had to pay the price for excessive shot-playing as the right-hander's 27-ball 39 runs came to an end. Shamsur had no control over his hook against Jerome Taylor and was caught by Kirk Edwards on the edge of the boundary. West Indies pace bowlers started with a flurry of short balls and Shamsur might have thought it would be better for him to hit some boundaries in an otherwise poor series rather than trying to stay in the middle as much as possible and he got the result which was obvious for him.

One down Anamul Haque followed him quickly as Bangladesh went for lunch on 55 for 2 in 15 overs.

Other opener Tamim Iqbal was not out at 14 and Mominul at 2 at lunch.

Before that it was a day for Chanderpaul who achieved the milestone off 134 balls, tucking Mahmudullah Riyad round the corner for a single and celebrated it with his usual fashion by kissing the pitch. Chanderpaul hit eight boundaries in his innings.

He went past Sir Don Bradman's 29 hundreds yesterday. He has been not out in the series and by doing that he became only the second batsman to remain undefeated throughout a Test series having played a minimum of three innings and scoring 200-plus runs after South Africa's Jacques Kallis.