Test England vs West Indies - 3 tests

[010203]

It was disappointing to see the West Indies surrender so meekly in their second innings, I was really hoping to see a bit of fight from them.

They had a solid start to the run chase, a difficult chase admittedly. No excuse whatsoever for 0-61 becoming 5-83.

 

[010203]

Like I said, we were very ordinary last summer to lose a test to this team.

Apparently this match was the first time they have scored over 450 since 2015. The next closest nation is 9. Even when you consider home conditions/number of tests played that is a staggering stat. Until their ability to develop first class batsmen dramatically improves their test team really is never going to go anywhere.

As brilliantly as the West Indies performed at the Gabba, some complacency kicked into the Australian side. Declaring behind late on day 2 was unnecessary. There was perhaps some tiredness among the quick bowlers.

 

[Plugger35]

Brathwaite winning the toss and choosing to bat first as he should as the pitch looks good for batting.

Hopefully the West Indies batsmen can make it look good for batting, they make most pitches look bad for batting.

 

[Plugger35]

Athanaze chops on against Atkinson just before lunch.

The Windies undoing their good work in that session by losing 3 wickets, they badly need a batsman to step up with Brathwaite.

 

[010203]

Shoaib Bashir's beak must be the biggest of any English cricketer since Nasser Hussain retired in 2004.

 

[010203]

Same old story from the 2nd innings at Trent Bridge for the West Indies - a decent start followed by a collapse.

 

[Plugger35]

Holder taking down Bashir for six, he is putting on a defiant stand with his partner in crime Da Silva.

The old guard are playing a rear guard.

 

[Plugger35]

The West Indies bowled out for 282 and now they have England 29/2 with Wood being sent in as a nightwatchman.

Entertaining first day.

 

[Plugger35]

Wood gone to Seales, he is a terrible nightwatchman, now Root has to come in and face the music.

 

[PhatBoy]

Wood gone to Seales, he is a terrible nightwatchman, now Root has to come in and face the music.

He’s done it 3 times.
Once against Australia he made 28, once against Pakistan he failed, and once here he failed.

terrible is probably a slight exaggeration from a sample size of 3.

You put the kiss of death on JDS mate. Since you said what you said Holder has not only outlasted him in both completed innings but outscored him.

He’s batting right where he should be. God I wish he could teach his teammates how to play spin. BUT….. I will say this.
Since that warm up game in Adelaide, da Silva seems to have remembered how to bat the way HE needs to bat and he looks much much better than he had for the 18 months beforehand and right at the moment he looks very safe in the lower middle order

Very interesting first day, again a missed opportunity for the Windies after a good start but the scoreboard says it’s a pretty even match and 1-2 early wickets on day 2 puts them in front in the game

 

[sherb]

This is the problem with Bazball. When it comes off it's great, when it fails it looks awful - as the shots by Crawley and Duckett attest.

Two great catches by Holder, after scoring 59. He had a pretty good day.

 

[PhatBoy]

This is the problem with Bazball. When it comes off it's great, when it fails it looks awful - as the shots by Crawley and Duckett attest.

Two great catches by Holder, after scoring 59. He had a pretty good day.

That’s nothing new, though, and an accepted hazard of the approach.

Ben Stokes has literally the third best winning percentage in the history of test captaincy behind only Steve Waugh and Ricky Ponting - and he’s less than 1 per cent behind Ponting. This includes 8 tests in India and Pakistan (and yes they lost half of those) and 5 against the world number one Australians, and another two in NZ at a time when they were the reigning world test champions.

People can criticise and complain about this plan all they want but plain and simple, it’s worked so far. There’s no argument to be had. With a mediocre side on paper, it’s delivered results whether it looks stupid or not.

I don’t think for a second that Ben Stokes is a captaincy genius though I do think his ‘nous’ is somewhat underrated by people who think he’s just an idiot who punched someone at a pub and says some silly things at press conferences. But they are a side bereft of too many world class cricketers over the duration of the time he’s been in charge yet they have a winning record that matches the sides Ponting led, which were stacked with champions.

Will that hold up for the same length of time? Remains to be seen. I suspect not, but who knows. Harry Brook probably can’t maintain the freak record he has at the moment but Ollie Pope might get better than his mediocre output has been, and Crawley has improved a lot in the last 18 months.

 

[sherb]

Pope chops on, England 4/51.

 

[Bedi]

big wicket, see ya Stokes

 

[t_94]

Motie very handy. Decent revs, bowls at a pace that makes him hard to take down & targets the pegs a fair bit.

 

[t_94]

Also Smith is going to be a serious player for the Poms.

 

[010203]

big wicket, see ya Stokes

He got a moral hundred.

 

[Bedi]

Good call to bring Shamar Jospeh on. Desperate for a wicket here

 

[Bedi]

87...see ya Root

 

[010203]

87...see ya Root

So plumb not even Marnus would think of reviewing it.

 

[Bedi]

So plumb not even Marnus would think of reviewing it.

Was a great knock, and pretty stiff not to get the ton

 

[icyflakes]

Love the way the Windies go about it - just having fun the entire time, really hope they can keep the consistency up here and snag a win. Taking one off Aus and then England within ~6 months is a huge boost for the team, would be incredible to see them rise again

 

[010203]

Was a great knock, and pretty stiff not to get the ton

A very good knock when his team needed it too.

 

[ioppolo]

This Jayden Seales kid seems a find for the Windies. Averages 24 over 13 tests and is only 22. Someone who could consistently partner Alzarri Joseph in tests.

 

[PhatBoy]

Some of Smith’s shots have been sublime; that pull shot out of the ground was outrageous, but we have made things far too easy for him.

With Stokes and Root, we actually bowled, though not always with brilliant execution, to a decent plan and to their credit they played well and were very good during their partnership and quite often hit perfectly good balls for runs.

Smith hasn’t had to work nearly had hard. Nor has Woakes really for that matter. This is where Alzarri Joseph’s profligacy hurts us - he has never ever been able to get his economy under control no matter how good his wicket taking is, and he is generally pretty good at taking wickets but you can’t give him a good burst because he leaks runs. Holder is still finding his feet in red ball cricket again after an extended absence so doesn’t have the control he’s familiar with, and the other two have played 16 tests between them and it’s showing now that we are being put under pressure striving for these last three wickets. I can’t help but think how much of a difference Kemar Roach would have made in these situations

Motie has bowled reasonably well.

It’s frustrating viewing because there are so many visibly encouraging parts to the puzzle that just need to slot in together for it to become a reasonably decent side. The attack is certainly good enough. Cleaning out the batting of most of the recycled dead wood was definitely the way to go.