W Indies out for 271 at tea on day 3, 1st test vs Australia
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) Darren Bravo and Carlos Brathwaite scored half centuries Monday to help the West Indies avoid a possible rout and score 271 in its first innings of the second test against Australia.
Bravo made 81 and was the last man out, right on tea of day three. Though the West Indies score was 80 runs short of avoiding the follow-on, Australia elected not to enforce it and instead rest its bowlers.
The West Indies resumed the day at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on a perilous 91-6, but Brathwaite made 59 in his test debut while sharing a 90-run seventh-inning stand with Bravo, the previous West Indian to make a test half century on debut five years ago.
After Brathwaite was dismissed by Nathan Lyon (4-66) with the last ball before lunch, Bravo stubbornly anchored his team's tail to restore some respectability to the score.
James Pattinson (5-72), who appeared to dismiss Brathwaite twice in the morning session only to have both deliveries called for no balls, broke through with the new ball after lunch by trapping Kemar Roach lbw for 22 with fullish delivery.
Jerome Taylor made an aggressive 15 with two boundaries before being caught behind while playing at a Lyon delivery and the innings ended when Bravo sliced a Pattinson ball to Steven Smith at gully. Jomel Warrican was 11 not out.
Bravo built a dogged innings to hold the innings together, facing 204 balls over almost a day's play and driving eight boundaries.
Brathwaite had the luckiest of escapes while on 13 when he was clean bowled by a Pattison no ball. He then set about riding his luck by playing some expansive strokes to guide two fours and a big six from his 126 balls.
Pattinson was called for another no ball when Brathwaite was caught at long leg when on 50.
Brathwaite was finally out for good when Lyon shaped a delivery toward the off stump that the batsman nicked back toward the bowler's end.
Pattinson, Lyon and Peter Siddle claimed two wickets each in the evening session Sunday after Australia declared on 551-3, raising the likelihood of another one-sided result after its innings and 212-run victory in the first test.
