By Jonathan Agnew BBC cricket correspondent

Ryan Sidebottom looks short of pace and is simply not effective in these conditions

On a pitch that has so far yielded 1,355 runs for just 15 wickets, only the most patriotic of supporters would entirely rule out the possibility of England's batsmen making a mess of this.

Memories of their collapse for 51 in Jamaica - which might well cost them the series - are still painfully fresh and for England to be safe, they have to bat at least until tea on the final day.

Sulieman Benn might prove awkward as Graeme Swann found just enough spin towards the end of the West Indies' marathon innings to raise an eyebrow or two and Fidel Edwards's opening burst will take some negotiating.

But the odds must be that England will head to Port of Spain on Tuesday knowing that a win there can salvage a draw from a series virtually everyone expected them to win.

Seeing the comical frustration on Edwards's face when he was told West Indies had declared and he was not going to bat summed up just how flat this pitch is.

Everyone else had been given a chance to fill their boots, most notably Ramnaresh Sarwan who, in all, batted for 11 and a half hours for his 291.

Had it not been for a crazy rush of blood when on 94 in Antigua, he would have scored a hundred in every innings he has played in this series and he looks invincible at present.

He quietly dismantled England's flagging bowlers, of whom the best was James Anderson. He ran in hard every ball, and seems to have found the West Indian length now, while still retaining the ability to swing the new ball.

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Stuart Broad tried his best, and Graeme Swann took a second five- wicket haul, but England lacked a cutting edge of the sort a razor sharp Steve Harmison would have provided, but there was no guarantee of that when the team was picked.

Ryan Sidebottom, meanwhile, looks short of pace and is simply not effective in these conditions in which you have to bowl the ball into the pitch.

He also made a real pig's ear of a simple catch in the deep from Denesh Ramdin, whose patient 166 will release the pressure that was quietly building on him to deliver with the bat.

With Sidebottom struggling, if Harmison can't be trusted to deliver in the final Test, there could yet be a surprise call-up for Kent's Amjad Khan.

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