Australias Weakest Bowling Attack? 3rd article
on April 4th, 2012 at 2:00 pm
IT is up to a largely unproven batting line-up to rebut criticism that Australia's bowling attack is the worst sent to the Caribbean.
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There was no hiding for the Australian bowlers at Kensington Oval on the second day of the first Test against West Indies yesterday.
Not from the pugnacious and provocative West Indies captain Darren Sammy, nor veteran Shivnarine Chanderpaul – and most especially, not from their critics.
Barely an hour into the day's play, veteran former West Indies batsman turned radio commentator Maurice Foster delivered the most damning of on-air condemnations of the Australian bowling.
"The weakest in terms of the bowling attack that I've ever seen in the Caribbean from an Australian team," 69-year-old Foster said.
For the first time in history, every batsman in the West Indies line-up reached double figures. Four of them posted half-centuries and one of those, Chanderpaul, pushed on to register a Test century, his 25th, only one behind Sir Garfield Sobers' tally, nine shy of Brian Lara.
Still, the 37-year-old left-hander did eclipse one Lara record – his unconquered 103 allowed him to overtake his former teammate as the greatest Test run-scorer at the Barbados ground.
And, for the first time since March 2009 against England, West Indies was in such a strong position it could declare its first innings closed, at 9-449. One of those wickets fell to a stunning Ryan Harris run-out, while two others were taken by opening batsman David Warner.
Shane Watson felled Sammy with a brute of a bouncer, but it was the Australian bowlers who were brought to their knees as the West Indies skipper groggily dusted himself off

