CRICKET/WEST INDIES v ENGLAND:ENGLAND FAILED in their race against time to dismiss West Indies as the third Test ended in a nail-biting draw at the Antigua Recreation Ground yesterday.

Andrew Strauss’ team remain 1-0 behind in the Test series after West Indies’ last pair Daren Powell and Fidel Edwards negotiated 10 overs.

West Indies closed on 370 for nine, with four scheduled overs remaining, when the offer of bad light by umpires Daryl Harper and Rudi Koertzen was taken.

After setting their hosts an improbable 503-run target, England entered the final day requiring seven wickets.

Despite dominating this hastily-arranged match, however, they could not finish the job.

Held up for what seemed an eternity by overnight pair Ramnaresh Sarwan and Shivnarine Chanderpaul, and hampered by early morning rain, which snipped one-and-a-quarter hours off the start of the fifth day, England toiled away on what remained a good surface despite limited preparation.

Two successes apiece for pace bowler James Anderson and spinner Graeme Swann post tea raised hopes.

But England lacked the cutting edge to finish the job as Powell and Edwards displayed tremendous powers of defiance.

Things had looked up when Swann took his match haul to seven as left-hander Brendan Nash’s indecision in playing a shot at a delivery from around the wicket cost him dear.

Anderson then claimed a first success of the match when Jerome Taylor turned a delivery tailing into the stumps straight to midwicket.

And another delivery angled into a right-handed batsman caused further damage as Denesh Ramdin played on.

During a tense final hour, with the game in the balance, Swann put the tourists on the brink when the third leg-before appeal in quick succession was answered in the affirmative by South African Koertzen.

Benn’s departure left England with more than half an hour to claim one more wicket.

But desperation was setting in when, with the light fading, Strauss asked Flintoff to send down a third spell of the day.

There was no fairytale ending, however, and after failing to separate the 10th-wicket duo in six balls from the pavilion end, Flintoff was forced to give way to Kevin Pietersen’s off-spin after a ruling by the umpires that facing the fast men in murky light was unfair.

Finally the umpires made an offer the West Indies could not refuse.