West Indies v England, 2nd Test, Day 1: Batsmen Struggle on a Difficult Pitch

 

West Indies v England

2nd Test, Day 1: Batsmen Struggle on a Difficult Pitch

January 31^st 2019

 

When, in the first session of a Test match you see some balls explode from a good length and others scuttle through at ankle height, you know that you have a result pitch on your hands. Either England have an unexpected chance to level the series, or the West Indians feel so confident about what they have seen so far that they think that a 3-0 series whitewash is on.

There is always some edge to series between the West Indies and England. Back in the 1980s, to obtain what they called a series blackwash against England, the old colonial master, supporter of the South African Apartheid regime and the perceived centre of racial prejudice and injustice, was the greatest desire of any West Indian: it was the one series result that really mattered. The fact that before the last two tours there have been some rather tactless comments about the weakness of the West Indian team, has done nothing to assuage the desire to give England a good kicking. It has translated into the local batsmen showing the sort of guts and determination that must make past coaches wonder what they were doing wrong and the bowlers playing with a fire that evokes the attacks of yesteryear. The arrival of the England players on their shores has convinced players who were capable of flashes of brilliance, to get their heads down and play to the best of their ability for an entire match. For those of a certain age, used to see rampaging Barbadians, Antiguans, Jamaicans, Guyanans and their kin trampling all comers, it is an evocation of their youth and an age when you could only sit and watch in awe how England sides were mercilessly blown away.

The thought was that, with a better balanced side and the advantage of the 1^st Test to give players hard practice and a kick up the backside, the second Test would see reaction. Within half an hour of the start, Keaton Jennings must have been thinking that he had got the better part of the deal when Joe Denly was picked ahead of him (Jennings though can expect to play an important part as the hand injury to Ben Foakes means that he is in his specialist Short Leg position where he can change the match with a single reaction catch). The score advanced at a veritable crawl. After 10 overs, England were 17-2 and Joe Denly’s dismissal evoked fond memories of the solidity of Keaton Jennings against pace: Denly found a way to get the worst ball of the morning through to the keeper. While Denly’s form with Kent has often been brilliant in recent seasons, it has been in Division 2 and the doubts that surfaced in Sri Lanka, where his lack of form obliged England to change their plans, are continuing. Denly’s sequence in red-ball games for England this winter has been 25, 0, DNB, 12 & 6 and, with the ball, 1-48, 0-43 (from 5 overs!) and 1-26. Seven games with Sydney Sixers brought a single wicket in the five innings in which he bowled and scores of 13, 1, 14, 12, 11, 10 & 76*. In other words, he has not been in prime batting form and has been given reportedly just these two Tests to seal his place, playing out of position in the batting order. No one doubts his character and talent, but it has been a tough task to come in and turn things around. In particular, it has been suggested that he needs 200 runs in a maximum of four innings to ensure that he will play next summer against Ireland and Australia: that sort of form would have challenged even Sir Geoffrey in his prime on this type of surface. Denley’s Test debut lasted 23 painful balls but, by then, he had already seen Burns depart.

With the innings sinking and occasional balls doing alarming things, patience seemed not to be working. Burns, Denly, Root (who got a brute) and Buttler managed a grand total of 18 runs from 68 balls. Jonny Bairstow though decided that the best way to fight fire was slash and burn and, for a time, it worked. He has scored 52 of 78 on the board before the inevitable happened and he just missed a straight one. Finally, at 93-6, Moeen and Foakes, two players who feared for their places in this match, came together. Moeen looked about as secure as a cat on a hot tin roof, but kept missing the wicket-taking balls until, suddenly, the timing was back and he started to blaze away as if it were a Thursday afternoon at Worcester against a second-string Gloucestershire attack. Ben Foakes accumulated and the game started to look so much easier again. An hour more of this and you wondered if the West Indians might crack but, instead, when that elusive century was there for the taking, Moeen went tamely, an end was open and 178-6 became 187ao.

This was the sort of pitch on which an attack that used the surface well might expect to bowl a side out cheaply. It was not the sort of surface where Jimmy Anderson would be unplayable, but you could sniff a 6-20 sort of performance if Stuart Broad was up for it, which he was. Ball after ball passed the edge, thudded into the pad, produced a false shot. In a single over Broad had three deliveries that, on another day, would have produced wickets. Another over produced five false shots from Campbell but, critically, no wicket. The first eight overs saw Anderson with figures of 4-1-4-0 and Broad, 4-2-4-0. Somehow the openers survived the first thrust and, with the change bowlers on, batting became a little easier, if still a painful crawl. However, the West Indians were doing what they have failed to do so often in the last decade: fight their way through a difficult spell. This West Indian side has been a revelation.

At 30-0 after 21 overs, at the Close, the West Indians are on top, but you have to feel that one early wicket could become three or four. Stuart Broad will be back in the morning after a rest, feeling that figures thus far of 7-2-10-0 are a brutal injustice. He has a point to prove, particularly as the ball was passed from him to the youngster who usurped him in the side.

Day 2 will, most likely decide the series. The side that wins the day, will win the Test. If it is the West Indies, the series is over. If it is England, the game at Gros Islet will become a decider. But, hold! If it is 2-0 going into the 3^rd Test, England will be facing their first blackwash since the 1980s. That would be quite something.