Jangoo and Chase’s record-breaking acts put Windies in total command

ST JOHN’S, An­tigua – Amir Jan­goo and cap­tain Ros­ton Chase pro­duced a bat­ting dis­play for the ages to put West In­dies in a strong po­si­tion to push for vic­to­ry against Sri Lan­ka at the end of play on the third day of the open­ing Test on Sat­ur­day.

The pair shared a spec­tac­u­lar, record-break­ing part­ner­ship of 401 for the sixth wick­et at the Sir Vi­vian Richards Sta­di­um, to car­ry the home side to a mam­moth first in­nings to­tal of 626 for nine be­fore Chase opt­ed to de­clare.

Armed with a mas­sive 318-run first in­nings lead, pac­er Jay­den Seales then fur­ther stamped the Windies’ dom­i­nance by pick­ing up the wick­et of Pathum Nis­san­ka for just three to leave the vis­i­tors 15 for one and fac­ing a her­culean task of avoid­ing a heavy de­feat on Sun­day’s penul­ti­mate day.

The day un­doubt­ed­ly be­longed to Jan­goo and Chase, with their part­ner­ship be­ing the high­est in Test crick­et his­to­ry for the sixth wick­et, sur­pass­ing the pre­vi­ous best of 399 be­tween Eng­land’s Ben Stokes and Jon­ny Bairstow against South Africa in 2016.

It was al­so the West In­dies’ sec­ond high­est part­ner­ship in Test crick­et, trail­ing on­ly the 446-run stand be­tween Sir Garfield Sobers and Con­rad Hunte against Pak­istan in 1958.

The Windies would have been tar­get­ing a handy first in­nings lead over their op­po­nents af­ter re­sum­ing the day on 271 for five, 37 runs adrift of Sri Lan­ka’s to­tal of 308.

With just the fast bowlers to come, Jan­goo, who start­ed the day on 78 and Chase, who re­sumed on 42, knew a ma­jor part­ner­ship was need­ed be­tween them if the West In­dies were to post a for­mi­da­ble to­tal.

Jan­goo, play­ing in just his third Test, con­tin­ued from where he left off the pre­vi­ous day, mix­ing sol­id de­fense with war­rant­ed ag­gres­sion.

He moved in­to the 90s and gave West In­dies a one-run lead by dri­ving left-arm spin­ner Son­al Di­nusha through the off side for four and in the next over he brought up his maid­en Test cen­tu­ry by flick­ing pac­er Ka­sun Ra­jitha for a bound­ary in front of square.

To­geth­er they car­ried the Windies to 356 for five at lunch, as Sri Lan­ka’s bowl­ing at­tack – miss­ing their fastest bowler in Lahiru Ku­mara who suf­fered a ham­string in­jury on Fri­day – toiled with­out suc­cess.

Chase even­tu­al­ly brought up his sixth Test cen­tu­ry by dri­ving Mi­lan Rath­nayake through cov­er for two runs as the West In­dies pro­gressed to 411 for five.

The skip­per sur­vived a ner­vous mo­ment short­ly af­ter when he was dropped by Ka­min­du Mendis at first slip, but the de­liv­ery was ruled to be a no-ball in any case.

The duo brought up their 300-run part­ner­ship and the Windies main­tained their grip on the con­test, pro­gress­ing to 492 for five at tea.

Af­ter the break, Jan­goo se­cured a dou­ble hun­dred with a sin­gle to square leg off Di­nusha and cel­e­brat­ed the mile­stone by leap­ing and punch­ing the air.

Bat­ting with a sense of ur­gency there­after, Jan­goo hit Rathanayake over deep back­ward square for a mas­sive six, but lost his wick­et the next ball at­tempt­ing the same shot, with a lead­ing edge send­ing the ball bal­loon­ing in­to the air for wick­et­keep­er Kusal Mendis to take a straight­for­ward catch, mov­ing the score to 569 for six.

In all, Jan­goo’s knock of 233 last­ed just over nine and a half hours and he faced 373 balls and struck 19 fours and three six­es.

Alzarri Joseph then en­ter­tained the crowd by hit­ting two six­es and one four in his cameo of 21 off 20 balls be­fore he too be­came a vic­tim of Rath­nayake.

With a de­c­la­ra­tion in sight, Chase fell six runs short of a well-de­served dou­ble cen­tu­ry when he was bowled by Di­nusha for 194 af­ter miss­ing his at­tempt­ed sweep shot.

Chase faced 324 balls and hit 13 fours and two six­es dur­ing his over eight and a half hours in­nings.

The on­ly bright spark for Sri Lan­ka was Rath­nayake, who claimed his first five-wick­et haul in Tests (5-124) when he trapped Ke­mar Roach lbw for a duck that ul­ti­mate­ly led to the de­c­la­ra­tion.

Faced with a nervy few min­utes be­fore the end of play, Nis­san­ka edged Seales’ first ball of the sec­ond over be­hind to the wick­et­keep­er to be out for three.

Things could have been worse for the vis­i­tors had Jan­goo man­aged to hold on to sharp catch at short leg off the bowl­ing of Ke­mar Roach that would have ac­count­ed for Nis­han Madush­ka be­fore he had scored.

Sum­marised Scores

SRI LAN­KA 308 & 15-1 in four overs.

WEST IN­DIES 626-9 dec’d in 160.5 overs (Amir Jan­goo 233, Ros­ton Chase 194, John Camp­bell 39, Bran­don King 31, Alzarri Joseph 21, Joshua Da Sil­va 20, Shamar Joseph 17 not out, Kavem Hodge 16; Mi­lan Rath­nayake 5-124, Asitha Fer­nan­do 2-56, Son­al Di­nusha 2-234).

Toss: West In­dies elect­ed to field.

Po­si­tion: Sri Lan­ka trail West In­dies by 303 runs with nine wick­ets re­main­ing.

Um­pires: Ah­san Raza, Shar­fud­doul­la.

Re­serve Um­pire: Deighton But­ler.

TV: Um­pire: Paul Reif­fel.

Match Ref­er­ee: Jav­a­gal Sri­nath.