Date-stamped : 28 Dec93 - 22:27 The Guardian 30 January 1993 - No more heroics for May - Mike Selvey in Perth. Tim May, the Australian off-spinner who played such a crucial part with ball and bat in the fourth Test, will take no part in today's final Test in Perth. May sustained such damage to his right index finger - the one from which he spins the ball - dur- ing his unbeaten second-innings 42 in Adelaide that he was unable to bowl in practice and was immediately ruled out. Unlucky as this is for May, who has only just returned to the side after three years, the injury could come as a timely aspirin to a selectorial headache. Although conditions at the WACA tradi- tionally favour pace bowling, there was a lobby in favour of playing both May and the leg-spinner Shane Warne. This was based on the belief that West Indies tend to self-destruct against the twirly stuff. However, not everyone subscribes to this train of thought and so the selectors might have faced a tricky dilemma as to whether to omit May or Warne. May turned the Adelaide game with a spell of five for five on the third day, and off-spinners have always enjoyed a measure of success on the ground. This is because of the drift allowed by the Fremantle Doctor, the delicious sea breeze which keeps people sane in a hothouse which yesterday lunchtime reached 105 degrees. The forecast is for heat today which will cook a sponge pudding. But Warne's seven for 52 won the Melbourne Test for Allan Border and the bounce from the pitch can be a leg-spinner's delight. Now the options have been reduced - and with Tony Dodemaide probably not being considered except in emergency - Jo Angel, the tall, uncomplicated fast bowler from Perth, was in the reckoning. He has been included in the squad for his aggression and bowls, so he says, like a West Indian: we shall see which one. The Guardian 2 February 1993 - On the third day Curtly rested - Mike Selvey in Perth. Australia v West Indies: fifth Test, third day Afater the flood came the mopping-up operation. It took West In- dies less than two hours here yesterday to take the six Aus- tralia wickets that stood between them and a 2-1 win in the Test series. Resistance was minimal, in the end an exercise in futility. By lunch Richie Richardson - a charming, courteous captain as well as a fine batsman - was celebrating victory by an innings and 25 runs and lifting the replica Frank Worrell Trophy made in Sydney to replace the original that has gone missing in the Caribbean. The Australians had added 103 to be all out in their second in- nings for 178, mostly from bats flung outside the off stump as the fast bowlers sought the edge. There was truly little to be gained by hanging around. Compensatory runs went to David Boon, the best and most deter- mined Australia batsman, whose 52 ensured that he finished as the series' leading scorer, and to the local lad Damien Martyn (32). Ian Healy finally got off the mark after a string of three noughts and made 27, and Merv Hughes hit 22 which included a six clumped high over long-on. Of the remainder, the sorriest sight was Allan Border on what was probably his last appearance in a Perth Test. Thirty-one times he has gone out to do battle against the blitzkrieg and this was his last crack at them, not only to try finally to take a series off West Indies but also to score the 50 runs he needed to overtake Sunil Gavaskar's record Test aggregate. In the first innings Border got a snorter first ball from Curtly Ambrose and pottered off head down. Yesterday, coming in as the umpires were replacing Boon's off stump, he avoided the king pair because Bishop brainlessly chose to pingpong the ball high over his head. The second ball Border let go outside off stump. The next was shortish and cramped him, and the ball deflected from a crooked bat on to his wicket. Nobody, not even West Indies, would have begrudged him a half- century so that he could make history in front of his own people. Instead fate dealt him his first pair not just in his 138 Tests but in his entire first-class career. The applause, after a stunned silence, was sympathetic; Border probably did not hear it. After that it was a formality: Martyn hooked to long leg, where Ambrose's agile catch by his bootstraps gave Anderson Cummins his first Test wicket; Walsh bounced out Hughes; and the coup de grace was left to Bishop, whose removal of Healy and McDermott gave him figures of six for 40 and a total of 23 in the series. After his sensational seven-for-one spell on Saturday there was not a single wicket yesterday for Ambrose, who surged in the same, beat the bat, saw a few catches dropped and generally found the tide against him. But he would not have minded too much. tion. Afterwards there was an entire table full of trophies for Am- brose - Player of the Match, Player of the Series, International Cricketer of the Year. Only a Nobel Prize eluded him, and a new mantelpiece to take home would have been useful. But the four- wheel-drive car that he won for the third of these honours en- abled the entire team to do a slow, and precarious, lap of honour. That Ambrose deserved the acclaim was never in doubt. ''If he's not their best ever, then he's in the Grand Final,'' was the as- sessment of Border, who said the Antiguan - and the perfect pitch prepared for him here at the WACA ground - was the difference between the sides. ''The fastest, bounciest pitch all year for the deciding Test,'' Border added wryly. The captain was right to suggest that the one-sided final match belied the closeness of the series: only a rearguard action saved West Indies from defeat in Brisbane, they lost in Melbourne and were within two runs of series defeat in Adelaide. Instead they won that match and steamrollered Australia here. Adelaide was Border's turning point. We can perhaps be even more specific and say it was the smart piece of fielding by Desmond Haynes that denied Australia the winning runs rather than McDermott's dismissal which followed. For Richardson, though, the watershed was reached with Brian Lara's stupendous 277 in Sydney when his men were in danger of going under. It showed them what was possible, he said, and from then on they did not look back. Australia now must look forward as well, to New Zealand in a couple of weeks and then to the Ashes. They have problems with batsmen out of form, but most would have been so against bowling of this quality; they will not encounter its like in England. More damaging, though, is the lack of quality pace bowling beyond the pairing of McDermott and Hughes. Salvation may come in the gangly form of Bruce Reid, who has re- cently started bowling again after a shoulder injury, and there is talk of Terry Alderman being wheeled out one last time. It is an old trick, as they say in the movies, but it just might work. - Ambrose, who has largely ignored the non-Caribbean media for most of his five-year Test career, broke his silence yesterday. off as underdogs but I know the talent we have. Once we have our cricket together, we can always win. ''My ambition now is to play Test cricket for a long time, be- cause when you are on top it feels grand.'' Contributed by The Management (help@cricinfo.com)