Cricket: England just can't find a final wicket; West Indies hold out to pull off a remarkable draw, as England's attack just can't find a way through.

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.

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 hastilyarranged match, however, they could not finish the job.

Skipper Strauss admitted England's third-Test draw with West Indies felt like a defeat - but defended his decision not to enforce the follow-on.

Strauss said: "It's pretty tough to take.

We had to work exceptionally hard for our wickets today.

"I thought we'd just done enough. The guys dug very deep; Andrew Flintoff was bowling on one leg, so to get very close is a great effort.

"From the time we turned up here through to the end of today, we've played some exceptional cricket - and if we continue to do that, I believe we'll come out on top," he added.

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 lefthander Brendan Nash's indecision in playing a shot at a delivery from around the wicket cost him dear.

That incision into the middle-order reduced England's equation to four wickets in just over two hours of daylight.

Anderson then claimed a first success of the match when Jerome Taylor turned a delivery tailing into the stumps straight to midwicket, where substitute Ian Bell, on briefly for Andrew Flintoff, tumbled to take the catch.

And another delivery angled into a right-handed batsman caused further damage as Denesh Ramdin played on at 4.50pm local time.

During a tense final hour, with the game in the balance, giant left-hander Sulieman Benn flirted with disaster when he scampered through for a single after being forced on to the back foot by Steve Harmison.

When Owais Shah's shy from squareleg missed with Benn a yard-and-a-half short of his ground, England might have thought their chance was slipping.

But in the very next over, following a drinks break, 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 10thwicket 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.

A FORMER associate of Sir Allen Stanford has accused the England and Wales Cricket Board of gross "naivety" for becoming involved with the controversial billionaire.

Antiguan lawyer John Fuller - who worked closely with Stanford during his time as owner of the airline Caribbean Star, which stopped flying in 2007 - claims the ECB could have avoided their current embarrassment had they consulted the region's business community before going ahead with the deal.

CAPTION(S):

IN CHARGE West Indies' Ramnaresh Sarwan celebrates reaching his century during the third Test; BATTLING IT OUT Durham and England pace man Steve Harmison shows the strain as the tourists toiled against the West Indies yesterday; HOPE Stuart Broad celebrates taking the key wicket of Chanderpaul.