Sinclair's a hit

Even a spirited counter-attack by Franklyn Rose and Reon King with the third new-ball could not win West Indies a fair share of the good cricketing fortune yesterday.

They will now have a desperate fight for survival on the remaining days of this second Test against New Zealand at the Basin Reserve.

Rose and King ripped out the last four New Zealand first innings wickets for only 11 runs, but much of the damage had already been done.

The hosts' latest batting star, Matthew Sinclair, shone as boldly, and sometimes as luckily, as he did on the first day. He moved from 123 to 214 in his first Test innings, and only the Rose-King assault late in the day forced New Zealand to close at 518 for nine wickets.

With the sixth ball of Chris Cairns' first over, Sherwin Campbell was ruled lbw by Zimbabwean umpire Russell Tiffin. Then Nehemiah Perry helped Adrian Griffith finish the day at five runs for that one vital wicket.

Even New Zealand observers thought the ball might have carried over Campbell's stumps, and there was also the feeling that the many West Indian lbw appeals, at least some having as much merit as Cairns', had been turned down by Tiffin and his New Zealand partner Evan Watkin, standing in his second Test.

There was no official complaint from the West Indies camp after play, but there did appear the feeling that if there was any good luck about West Indies had not received their fair share.

The visitors earlier in the day had seen Daren Ganga hustled from the field with a hand injured while fielding.

At first the injury appeared to be a dislocation caused when the young Trinidadian tried to stop a stinging cover drive from Sinclair. Dennis Waight, the West Indies repair-man, hustled out, noticed the little finger of Ganga's right hand was dislocated, and put it back into place. Only then did Waight notice a gap on the side of the injured digit.

Ganga was hustled away for an X-ray which showed a major and difficult fracture down the length of the little finger.

The finger was put in plaster, and Ganga given a six-to-eight weeks' healing time. And obviously no chance of batting again in this Test, effectively leaving only eight more first innings wickets in the long haul to get past the follow-on mark of 318.

That would be an achievement for this struggling side, but it should only lead to a draw over the last three days.

That would give New Zealand a home Test rubber win 1-0, and another feather in their cap which also includes England's tail feathers from the 2-1 series' win in the last northern summer.

As the pitch may well favour Daniel Vettori, the New Zealand left-arm spinner, over the rest of the Test, West Indies must fight against the prospect of another loss.

Such an outcome would give them the grisly recent touring history of five losses in South Africa followed by three consecutive losses away to Pakistan and then 0-2 against a less than formidable New Zealand side.

The pity was that late in the evening Rose and King showed what could have happened had the bowlers used a fuller length throughout the Test, in fact, the tour.

Sinclair was not the free-stroking dasher of the first day, in fact Nathan Astle looked rather the more impressive as he headed toward his sixth Test century, and his third against West Indies in four appearances.

Still, Sinclair's astonishing debut innings brought a host of landmarks, including putting him equal with Lawrence Rowe (against New Zealand at Sabina in 1972) as second only to Reginald Foster, the Englishman who started his Test career with 287 against Australia in 1903-04.

Sinclair and Astle put on 189 runs for the fourth wicket, a record for New Zealand against West Indies, and only a piece of good cricket by West Indies - and bad judgement by Astle - stopped him from going from 93 on to the century he thoroughly deserved.

When Sinclair was 198 he clipped a ball to deep mid-on - an easy single. In his eagerness to get Sinclair to his double century Astle called for a risky second, Rose's throw was accurate and Astle was judged on the television replay to be run out by five or six inches.

He had batted four hours in sparkling style, and West Indies were pleased to see him leave.

They were even more delighted when King somehow got a ball to deviate a little, beat the edge of Sinclair's rather tired