Even a careful, if non-scientific, trawl through West Indies cricket history could not unearth two simultaneous performances as crucial to the players involved, quite apart from the immediate position of the team, as those by Marlon Samuels and Darren Sammy with their individual hundreds and their record 204-run partnership over the first two days of the second Test.
The situation when Sammy walked in midway through the second session was dire and depressingly recognizable to anyone who has followed the West Indies in the last decade or so.
The pitch was beige in colour and benign in nature. From a clear, blue sky, warm sunshine bathed the ground. When he