Tea and Biscuits in the West Indies
Day 1: Grenada. Leach and Mahmood to the rescue after yet another England batting collapse.
Day 1: Grenada. Leach and Mahmood to the rescue after yet another England batting collapse.
When West Indian Skipper Kraigg Brathwaite won the toss this morning and asked England to bat first he was both breaking with cricketing tradition and perhaps taking the first available opportunity to try and force a positive result in this Test Match following the two previously drawn games. Regular readers of my column here or for those who watched those two matches with their own eyes will agree: the previous matches on this Caribbean tour have been high scoring if rather formulaic, drab affairs that both petered out into tame draws. Test Match cricket custom has long advanced the idea that a captain who wins the toss must bat first and even if 9 times out of 10 they still consider deeply whether to bowl first instead, on the 10th occasion they’ll still consider inserting the opposition (again), before batting. Every time. Test Match captains around the world carry the heavy baggage of once winning the toss on a seemingly bowler friendly wicket, asking the opposition to bat first, and then seeing that opposition rack up a huge first innings runs total.
Heavy is the head that wears the crown but perhaps with a mindset of attacking cricket and forcing a winning result, Kraigg Brathwaite inserted the England team into bat and when they were floundering at 46–3 at Lunch and 114–8 at the Tea Break, his West Indian bowlers had done him proud. In the morning session, Kyle Mayers snagged the first two vital wickets of Zak Crawley for just 7 and England Skipper Joe Root for a “duck” and had the faintly ridiculous figures of 5 Overs 5 Maidens 0 Runs 2 Wickets! Jayden Seales took 3 wickets with Kemar Roach and Alzarri Joseph each grabbing 2 apiece. With just 2 wickets needed at the Tea Break, the West Indies bowlers had thoroughly backed up the decision of their Skipper to bowl first and had won the two opening sessions of play. But tiredness and a real lack of zip and energy in the field allowed England to limp to a barely competitive 204 all out.
With the fall of Chris Woakes’ wicket straight after Tea and with no further addition to the innings score, it appeared that England were going to be skittled all out with a first innings total barely over 100 runs but it fell to Jack Leach and Saqib Mahmood to register England’s largest run partnership of 90 to salvage a dire situation and raise it slightly to a still below par final innings total of 204. Considering England were tottering on 53–5 and 114–9, to creep just above 200 runs at the end of the day’s play was an incredible achievement from their last two batsmen.
Leach was given a cricketing “life” when he was dropped on 10 to remarkably finish the innings as second top scorer with 41 runs and second only to his batting partner Saqib Mahmood. He too received a “life” when on 15 runs but would grow in confidence in tandem with a growing runs total as he passed his highest ever first class score before on 49, and with only 1 run needed for a maiden Test Match 50, he “dragged on” a loose delivery from Jermaine Blackwood into his stumps. Considering the remarkable innings that came before, it was a tame ending and more than a little cruel on Mahmood who in partnership with Jack Leach had dragged their team back into a Test Match they were already seemingly out of.
When Kraigg Brathwaite inserted England into bat this morning he would’ve been rather pleased if you’d offered him a bowled out England for barely 200 runs by the end of the day’s play. And there’s the rub and the beauty yet again of Test Match cricket. Brathwaite will be immensely pleased to have guided his team to bowl out England, in a day, and for only 204 runs. But it could and should have been so, so much better. Despite Leach and Mahmood’s heroics, the West Indies were rather lacklustre, tired and disinterested with an hour or so of the day to go. They should have bowled England all out for 125 and scored half of those runs in reply by the end of play stumps. Instead, batsman numbers 10 and 11 for England have dragged their team to 200+ defendable first innings runs and on a wicket that is already showing signs of uneven and untrustworthy bounce.
Heavy is the head that wears the crown? If Brathwaite can replicate any of his mammoth innings in the previous two Test Matches and guide his side to parity with England by the end of tomorrow’s play, we could have a rather exciting Test Match on our hands.
Thanks for reading. Please find links below to the opening day articles I’ve written recently on the Test Matches on this mini tour from Antigua and Barbados:
Tea and Biscuits in the West Indies
Day 1: Antigua. Jonny Bairstow the centurion yet again as England take the honours on the opening day.medium.com
Tea and Biscuits in the West Indies
Day 1: Barbados. Root and Lawrence put the Windies to the sword on yet another placid and uninspiring Test Match…medium.com