The West Indian cricket-players have admitted that their behaviour in the last half-hour of the drawn Third Test in Barbados was a "disgrace" and have apologised.
That claim has been made by Herschelle Gibbs, supported by his captain Shaun Pollock.
Speaking from the Caribbean, Gibbs said: "As the match ended and they shook our hands, they apologised. They were obviously disappointed and disgraced at the way they went about the game."
He named those who apologised as captain Carl Hooper, superstar Brian Lara and maiden century-maker Ridley Jacobs. "Brian apologised for what happened and said it was a disgrace," claimed Gibbs.
"We would have had another four or five overs to bowl at them and that could have made the difference."
The extraordinary slow-motion cricket began after South Africa had rushed through 15 overs in just 40 minutes. With 90 overs (minus those subtracted for change of innings) now elapsed, the Windies realised that at this rate the South Africans could bowl another ten overs. In the end the batsman managed to restrict the South Africans to a paltry eighteen balls.
"Mervin Dillon and Ramnarine were just so embarrassed, even while they were at the crease. We continued to talk to them when they were batting and you could see how embarrassed they were themselves at the way they went about things."
Dinanath Ramnarine was given an official warning for time wasting by umpire Steve Bucknor. Yet he continued his blatant time-wasting. He even would walk away almost the length of the pitch between deliveries, even when spinner Nicky Boje was bowling.
He lay in apparent agony as trainer Ronald Rogers sprayed pain-killer on to his shoe, rather than the skin of his supposedly injured foot or ankle.
Carl Hooper's team held out to end on an embarrassing 86 for seven wickets.
Gibbs pointed out in his interview that all the pressure will now be on the Windies. Their batting collapse contrasted with their solid performances in four of their previous five innings, in each of which they had scored over 300 runs. They also crumbled in their second innings in the second Test, which they lost after four good days.
"They need to make all the running. But I think they’re really happy drawing this one and would be really really happy to draw the series with South Africa. This last innings was a bit of scare for them."
Ironically, the time-wasting may not have helped the Windies if (a) the South Africans had bothered to appeal for a clear deflection and noise when Jacobs snicked to the ‘keeper on 98 (could it be that there was some financial reason why Jacobs had to score his maiden Test century and the first West Indian ton ever against South Africa?); or (b) if Pollock had declared several overs earlier when it should have been obvious that the Windies would have had little or no chance of reaching the target.
The time-wasting debacle adds force to suggestions that stricter action should be taken by adding on overs for time-wasting.
The Fourth Test starts on Friday.
(Paul Martin is editor-in-chief of Sport Africa and Live Africa, and is the regular Southern Africa correspondent for rediff.com)
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