West Indies
v England, 2nd Test, Days 1 to 4: About Turn! As You Were!
August 28th 2017
We wanted England to face a much stiffer challenge and
for the batsmen to get tough runs. Well, we have had it, although the betting
is that the end result will be the same, even if the route has been totally different.
The good news: we have a game on our hands.
Yes, despite one high-profile pundit stating that the impending three-day
finish in this game just added weight to the need for four-day Tests, we have a
last-day run chase and a (potentially) tight finish on the cards.
The bad news: for the first three days,
England were way off the pace, both batting and bowling and often made the West
Indies look like world-beaters. If the West Indies had fielded better, they
might have sealed a three-day win.
The worse news: after being in a position after
Tea on Day 3 in which a West Indian win early on Day 4 looked to be the most
probable result, they have folded like a card house in a gale. After three days
of plaudits for their massively improved display and turning the series on its
head, going into Day 5 we are right back to where we started this Test.
Mark Stoneman and Dawid Malan desperately needed
runs and both got them when England needed them most desperately. Tom Westley
has failed again twice and looks unlikely to figure in the Final Test of the
series. The fact that both got their runs with England having their backs to
the wall and looking set for a heavy
defeat and when batting was hardest only makes it better. The only downside was
that both reached 50 and then got out soon afterwards, instead of going on to a
really big score. Stoneman held the innings together when it could have fallen
apart had he gone early. Malan set up the glorious counter-attack that was to
follow with a “they shall not pass!” innings of tough grind. They both look set
to have booked places in the tour party to Australia. Westley, in contrast, has
fallen-away after a good start and, with a sequence of 25, 59, 29, 9, 8, 3
& 8, makes it look likely that he will give up his place in the 3rd
Test: one line of thought is that Alex Hales may come back, batting at #5, with
Malan moving up to #3. A middle order of Hales, Stokes, Bairstow, Moeen,
followed by Woakes and Broad contains sufficient fire-power to give any side
serious indigestion.
The transformations undergone by the West Indies in
this match have been utterly bizarre. More than Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde, it
has been more like The Hulk, changing from mid-mannered Bruce Banner into the
bullying Hulk, bursting out of his clothing, laying waste to all around and
then, just as suddenly, transforming back into Bruce Banner and having dirt
kicked meekly in his eyes. For eight and a half sessions they have bossed the
match and then, thanks to slovenly missed chances – dropped catches (plural),
run-outs missed and wickets off no balls (from a leg spinner of all people) –
they have let England recover from 94-3, still 75 short of making the West
Indies bat again, to the point where they could declare, setting 322 to win on
a pitch that is turning square and, at times, keeping very low.
The West Indian transformation has been stark. They
have bowled far better and have made more runs in one innings here than in two
in the 1st Test. They looked an all-round better side and certain to
level the series. No one expected England to face a fired-up side that was spitting
blood and to be made to look second rate. However, the return to being Bruce
Bannerman has been even more unexpected: comic missed chances (how often do you
see a side fail to complete a run-out with both batsmen at the same end and the
return coming in to the bowler, who only has to gather and knock off the
bails?) Lethargy in the field and diabolically bad tactics (delaying the new
ball and allowing Malan and Stokes to play themselves in when another wicket
before Lunch might well have killed-off the England fightback). And then, when
they had another chance to finish things off – England falling from 303-4 to
327-7 – and chase around 200, the England lower order scored runs at will and
set up a declaration against a side that appeared to have given up.
It is fair to say that most pundits thought that a
lead of 180 might be enough to defend and that 220 would give England a real
chance but, at 327-7, with the lead only 158, West Indies seemed to have given
up already despite the fact that batting suddenly looked well-nigh impossible,
with the ball jagging everywhere. By the time that Moeen was dismissed for a
rapid 82, the game was genuinely up and the et
tu brute, was the 46 added in 11 overs by Woakes and Broad, as Joe Root set about planning the
unlikeliest of declarations. With most pundits thinking that England needed to
score 350 to stand a chance – and that it would be a tough ask for the batting
to get that many – to be able to declare at 490-8 was just ridiculous.
Moeen Ali, who has been in red-hot bowling form
this summer, now has a worn, fifth-day pitch, offering extravagant turn and
some variable bounce, with a lot of rough outside the left-hander’s off stump.
Despite his reputation for disliking the pressure of being expected to win a game in the fourth innings, he has every chance of compensating for a poor first innings bowling
performance and being the match winner.
Of the twenty-one successful fourth innings chases
at the ground, only twice has a side scored more than 220 to win at Headingley –
one of those was Don Bradman’s legendary chase of 404-3 to win in 1948 and the
other was a dead rubber in the 2001 Ashes, with Australia perhaps not quite
straining every sinew to win and Mark Butcher playing the innings of his life.
More alarming for the West Indies is that fact that
the highest fourth innings score to draw a Test at Headingly is England’s 238-6
against Pakistan in 1974 and that that Test was the only time that a side has
batted out more than the minimum 96 overs that the West Indies will have to
face to force a draw in a Headingley Test. Three sides have though faced more
than 96 overs in the fourth innings at Headingley when failing to avoid defeat.
Of the nineteen fourth innings chases to end in
defeat at Headingley, the median innings length was just 62 overs.
In other words, unless the 2017 West Indians can
match something that only Bradman’s Invincibles have done and score 322 to win a Headingley Test, it is hard to see
any other result than an England win some time around Tea.
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