Tea and Biscuits in the West Indies
Day 3: Barbados. Centuries from Brathwaite and Blackwood even a Test Match drifting to a draw.
Day 3: Barbados. Centuries from Brathwaite and Blackwood even a Test Match drifting to a draw.
I concluded yesterday’s article with a de facto total of 3 talking points for an exciting way in which this Test Match may move forward and all 3 coalesced rather nicely, and in varying ways, in the morning’s opening session. Self regarding nonsense aside, the morning’s play also highlighted that the intrusive DRS (Decision Review System) isn’t as shiny and infallible as the cricketing powers that be would have you believe and we had the delicious irony of two England international cricketers pushing a sightscreen to assist their West Indian opposition, a task all too familiar for amateur club cricketers the world over!
On the field, I posited last evening that England’s two debutant fast bowlers would have a lot of overs to bowl today and both Matthew Fisher and Saqib Mahmood were excellent in the morning session. Where Fisher was aggressive Mahmood bowled with swing and guile and whilst neither took a wicket, Mahmood in particular looked a more likely threat as the morning wore on. Jack Leach too bowled miserly, with a spin bowler’s flight and guile and while bowling virtually unchanged all morning he was a constant threat. As is so quaintly old fashioned with the game of cricket, your better balls often do not result in a wicket, they are too good, spin too much, swing through the air or are dropped. Then you bowl a cricketing “long hop”, short, wide and unthreatening, and the batsman duly hits it straight to a fielder! Thus was the downfall of Sharmarh Brooks this morning for 39 runs. Leach bowled well, tight, and with spin off the wicket. Then he bowled a loose short ball and Brooks top edged it straight to Chris Woakes.
This brings us neatly onto part two of my overnight trilogy of factors for this Test Match: the wicket. Brooks’ dismissal above came after a puff of dust on the wicket thereby demonstrating the slow deterioration of the wicket and Nkrumah Bonner’s dismissal shortly after again showed the varying bounce of the wicket as the ball kept lower than the West Indian batsman was expecting. The replay showed the ball clipping the top of middle stump, but only after Bonner had reviewed the original decision. Despite DRS he was given out even though the replays clearly showed, as well as the fallibility of the televisual system, that Bonner had actually got the faintest of edges on the ball before it crashed into his pads and therefore he was not out. Even though the replays showed this to be so and his correct decision to review in the first place, he was out and the West Indies had barely crawled to 101 runs having only scored 30 runs in the morning session at that point. Mere deliveries later, Ben Stokes trapped Jermaine Blackwood right in front of his stumps as the ball surprised him by keeping low. Had England reviewed the initial decision of not out the television replay would have corrected them: the ball was crashing into Blackwood’s leg stump. Thus is the DRS system!
You’re in. You’re out. And sometimes when you’ve got out you’re back in again.
Thus is the cricketing system!
The third item on our overnight agenda was the dogged determination and spirit of the West Indian Skipper Kraigg Brathwaite. Not out overnight, the opening batsman scrapped his way to 44 not out at the lunch break and is the absolute lynchpin for his team’s first innings score as well as their ability to “dig in”, not fold and close the first innings scoring gap. Minutes prior to the session break he survived a brilliant in swinging delivery from Saqib Mahmood and a ball that was perhaps a portent for his dangerous ability to swing the old ball in the afternoon session to come. With the West Indies only scoring 43 runs in the opening session they dug rather a huge hole for themselves and it was incumbent upon their Skipper and Jermaine Blackwood (who had a cricketing “life” when still on 0) to bat deep into the afternoon but also score runs in the process.
The afternoon session was all West Indian in the guise of their Captain Kraigg Brathwaite (79 not out) and Vice-Captain Jermaine Blackwood (50 not out). Collectively, the attacking spearhead of the West Indian team progressed their partnership to 95 runs with 82 runs scored in the session and far more crucially, the West Indian batsmen who took to the field after the lunch break returned for their tea break undefeated. Blackwood reach his half-century on the stroke of the tea break and scoring 50 runs since the cricketing “life” he received when on 0 this morning. He posed the more attacking threat of the two whereby his Captain moved determinedly and rather untroubled to his 79 runs. Opposing Captain Root rotated his bowlers throughout the afternoon session with spinner Jack Leach the only real threat as England’s faster bowlers struggled with the low and slow wicket as well the old cricket ball.
The final session of the day’s play held real promise with the prospect of a brand new ball for the England bowlers and two and half hours of play for the West Indians with which to continue denting the visitors lead. With captain Brathwaite nearing a century and his vice-captain Blackwood already 50 not out, how did the fortunes of the main actors in our three Act play conclude the day’s play? Aside from professional cricketers carrying out boyhood cricket club duties, we had a little of everything else!
In the process of reducing England’s lead at the end of the day’s play to 219 runs, Brathwaite and Blackwood, captain and vice-captain respectively, mirrored the efforts of their English counterparts as they both passed the century mark and almost batted together through another full session of the day. Blackwood fell to a straight delivery from the part-time spin bowling of Dan Lawrence as he simply “padded up” without playing a shot that on the television review would’ve cannoned into the top of his middle stump. However, his 102 runs may prove as valuable as the time taken out of the game by his almost all day century as well as the sobering reflections that England had taken his wicket on 0 (when England failed to use a TV Umpire review) and on 65 when he was brilliantly clean bowled by a delicious in swinging delivery from Saqib Mahmood that was immediately chalked off by the very same TV Umpire for a clear no ball. Such are the vagaries and “lives” presented in cricket.
You’re out. You’re back in.
You’re out for a duck. You score a century.
Who did remain not out at the end of the day’s play was Blackwood’s captain Kraigg Brathwaite. The Barbadian “carried his bat” throughout the day for a mammoth stay at the crease, his 10th Test Match century, and 109 not out into the bargain. I don’t remember Brathwaite having any cricketing lives today. He was simply obdurate, solid in defence and eager to punish any wayward deliveries as he slowly but surely passed both the 50 and 100 milestones. Whilst not as technically straight and correct as his opposite number and England captain Joe Root, they both share a wristy and delicate way in manoeuvring a cricket ball around a field for runs as well as deep singular desires to simply bat and bat and bat. Brathwaite played a captain’s “knock” today and if he continues in a similar vein to that of Root in England’s innings, he may well depart from the crease tomorrow with the two team’s scores approaching something near parity.
Combined with a hard working but largely toothless England bowling attack, a West Indian batting unit desperate to compile big runs and a wicket that barely deteriorated at all today, all I can foresee with two days to go is a large first innings total for the West Indies matching that of England’s, and rather than a swift one inning dart at a positive win for either side, a drab tame draw perfectly in keeping with a drab, tame wicket. Jack Leach bowled over a third of his team’s total overs today and although debutants Fisher and Mahmood were inexpensive they were equally ineffective. A total of just 14 wickets have fallen in the first 3 days of this Test Match and I’d be highly surprised if a similar number of wickets have fallen come Sunday evening. The match seems destined for a draw and I’d be hugely surprised if there was any other result whatsoever.
Then again, I was highly surprised as well as childishly pleased to see professional cricketers lugging a sightscreen back and forth today.
Oh the memories!
Thanks for reading. Please see links below to my articles on the first two days play in this Test Match:
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
Tea and Biscuits in the West Indies
Day 2: Barbados. The hosts are under the pump after a spectacular century from Ben Stokes.medium.com