da stake casino： West Indies captain Carl Hooper paid tribute to his depleted bowling attackafter a dramatic first hour on the opening day of the second Test in Kandywhich saw fast bowler Mervyn Dillon break down with a chest injury and ColinStuart banned from
Charlie Austin21-Nov-2001West Indies captain Carl Hooper paid tribute to his depleted bowling attackafter a dramatic first hour on the opening day of the second Test in Kandywhich saw fast bowler Mervyn Dillon break down with a chest injury and ColinStuart banned from bowling.Dillon was unable to complete his third over because of sharp chest painsand difficulties breathing after each delivery. He returned in the afternoonto bowl a five over spell, but according to the management he was close totears the pain was so great.Stuart came on to finish Dillon’s over, but bowled just three deliveriesbefore being banned from bowling again in the innings by umpire JohnHampshire following two high full tosses in his first three balls.West Indies were left with just two frontline bowlers, but still managed totake four wickets in the morning and a further one in the afternoon beforerain halted play with Sri Lanka on 193 for five.”Sometimes you are faced with these situations and one of two things canhappen,” he said. “You can either capitulate as a team or one of the guyscan put his hand up and say ‘hey, I am going to take the brunt of it today.’I think Ramnarine did that remarkably well today.”Coming into lunch with four wickets was just what we wanted but after lunchwe struggled a little bit with just two bowlers.”Considering what happened, to end the day with Sri Lanka on 193 for fivewas a pretty good effort.”Hooper was annoyed to miss out on an opportunity to put Sri Lanka underpressure on a juicy morning pitch.”There was something there in the first hour and we started well with awicket in the first over. It would have been interesting to see what wouldhave happened if we had a fully fit Mervyn Dillon.”He remained philosophical about Stuart’s enforced withdrawal.”That is the ruling at the end of the day, but anyone who knows Stuart knowsthat it wasn’t deliberate,” he said. “The ball genuinely slipped out of hishand. Sometimes you would like to discretion to be used but at the end ofthe day they have to make the judgment based on the rules.He now hopes for early wickets in the morning followed by a solid battingperformance from his side who need to win to level the series.”We would have liked more wickets, but I am not going to complain at 193 forfive,” he said. “If we can get a wicket early tomorrow morning and we canrestrict them to something under 250 that would be ideal for us.””Hopefully we will have Mervyn back as well as Stuart in the second innings,so if we can then build a good lead, we can put the Sri Lankans under somepressure.”Dillon is due to see a doctor tonight, with the management hoping for aclear diagnosis, which has been elusive so far, but on the evidence of thisafternoon is unlikely to be able to play a full part tomorrow.