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England’s sting is drawn in Port of Spain
West Indies v England
Simon Wilde
RARELY has a team so blatantly approached a Test match with the sole intention of achieving a draw as the West Indies here in Port of Spain. Having packed their side with batting, they were more or less conceding that they would be unable to dismiss England, just as they had not dismissed them since the first Test in Jamaica.
“You bat until you are ready to declare and then let’s see if you can bowl us out twice,” Chris Gayle, the West Indies captain, seemed to be saying.
It is an audacious strategy - batting for a draw from the second evening of a five-day game can’t be easy - and if Gayle and his team pull it off they will ignore the purists, having regained the Wisden Trophy that they relinquished to England in 2000 and having won their first series against major opposition for six years.
For a region starved of success, the end has become far more important than the means. But there were a few frustrated onlookers yesterday hoping that Gayle’s team would be undone by their arrogance and prove unable to survive on a surface that should break up more than the one in Barbados.
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Gayle’s confidence looked well placed after he had blazed his way to an unbeaten 49 in the hour and a half up to stumps last night. He did, though, lose Devon Smith, a welcome victim for Monty Panesar on his return to the side.
Yesterday was grim fare. With England resuming on 258 for two, there was little genuine cricket until they declared at 546 for six 40 minutes, again setting about the task of finding 20 wickets for the first time this winter. James Anderson and Stuart Broad made no inroads and Amjad Khan starting nervously with five no-balls in three overs. England also lost their two referrals.
When England had resumed batting, the liveliest passage of play came when Gayle immediately took the second new ball. It brought the wickets of Andrew Strauss, bowled behind his legs by Fidel Edwards for 142, the same score he made in Barbados, and Owais Shah, who brainlessly ran himself out within three balls of resuming an innings interrupted by cramp on Friday afternoon.
Once Paul Collingwood and Matt Prior had settled in and embarked on a partnership of 218 that brought centuries for them both, Gayle was quickly back on the ultra-defensive. The quick bowlers were rarely seen again as he relied on an array of part-timers who made little in the way of footmarks. They bowled as wide of the stumps as they dared.
Would the umpires come down hard on them? Not really. Would England twig? Only belatedly. Part of Gayle’s thinking may be based on a feeling that England are short on winning nous. He was not altogether wrong.
If not for Prior’s enterprise, England might have sorely struggled because Collingwood scored only 12 in the first hour. But eventually he refound his touch and accelerated strongly towards lunch, reaching his fourth hundred in 12 Test innings in the final over of the session.
The morning yielded 112 runs from 27 overs, good work by England, but in the face of Gayle’s liquorice allsorts attack they took their foot off the gas in the afternoon.
Only once Prior had reached a second Test century and career-best score in 16 Tests - celebrated with a baby-rocking movement - did England finally go into overdrive, 56 coming off 53 balls after tea.
If England do indeed lose the series, they will doubtless rationalise it as two bad hours in Jamaica costing them dear because since then their batsmen have pretty much had things their own way. Indeed, their progress has been as serene as had been expected when they left home with the cry ringing in their ears: “Fill your boots, lads!” The centuries by Collingwood and Prior yesterday were the team’s seventh and eighth since the jaw-dropping events of Jamaica and their partnership was the ninth in excess of 100 during the same period. For three matches England have been selling their wickets at more than 70 apiece. So far, so facile . . . easy runs against an attack not without talent but lacking the essential discipline required for Test cricket.
But England are not just 1-0 down because of two bad hours in Jamaica. With the ball, they failed to finish the job in St John’s (where they claimed 19 wickets) and never got it started in Barbados (where they were restricted to a measly nine wickets).
Even with a five-man bowling attack here, and one containing in Amjad a bowler who the experts tell us “offers something different”, 20 wickets remains a formidable task on a pitch as slow as this one. There is, though, the promise of turn for England’s two spinners.
The scorched-earth tactics of their opponents will be attacked but England can have little real cause for complaint. For periods of the match at the Antigua Recreation Ground apart, they have not taken the West Indies batsmen out of their comfort zone, an amazing failure considering West Indies have suffered more collapses than the stock market.
At least this series has established that Shah is not the answer to England’s problems at number three, where nobody has scored a century for 10 months. Shah has waited long for a proper Test run but five innings in the Caribbean have provided enough evidence that he lacks the temperament to succeed at this level.
He was again a bag of nerves yesterday, more fidgety that the Duracell Bunny. His three-ball stay summed up his bewildering talent for inspiring and infuriating: first ball solidly defended, the second drilled down the ground for four, the third pushed into the on side for a run that never existed.
Never the fleetest of movers, he was easily beaten home by the throw from substitute fielder Dwayne Bravo. That was the third time in nine Test innings Shah had been run out - and all three times he was the guilty party. It says every bit as much about his chronic tension as the cramp he suffers in his arms and his wooden fielding.
For the first Test of the summer at Lord’s Ravi Bopara should return at three with Andrew Flintoff, provided he is fit, slotting back in at number seven, one place below Prior, who now averages 47.3 in Tests.
West Indies v England
Simon Wilde
RARELY has a team so blatantly approached a Test match with the sole intention of achieving a draw as the West Indies here in Port of Spain. Having packed their side with batting, they were more or less conceding that they would be unable to dismiss England, just as they had not dismissed them since the first Test in Jamaica.
“You bat until you are ready to declare and then let’s see if you can bowl us out twice,” Chris Gayle, the West Indies captain, seemed to be saying.
It is an audacious strategy - batting for a draw from the second evening of a five-day game can’t be easy - and if Gayle and his team pull it off they will ignore the purists, having regained the Wisden Trophy that they relinquished to England in 2000 and having won their first series against major opposition for six years.
For a region starved of success, the end has become far more important than the means. But there were a few frustrated onlookers yesterday hoping that Gayle’s team would be undone by their arrogance and prove unable to survive on a surface that should break up more than the one in Barbados.
Related Links
Multimedia
Gayle’s confidence looked well placed after he had blazed his way to an unbeaten 49 in the hour and a half up to stumps last night. He did, though, lose Devon Smith, a welcome victim for Monty Panesar on his return to the side.
Yesterday was grim fare. With England resuming on 258 for two, there was little genuine cricket until they declared at 546 for six 40 minutes, again setting about the task of finding 20 wickets for the first time this winter. James Anderson and Stuart Broad made no inroads and Amjad Khan starting nervously with five no-balls in three overs. England also lost their two referrals.
When England had resumed batting, the liveliest passage of play came when Gayle immediately took the second new ball. It brought the wickets of Andrew Strauss, bowled behind his legs by Fidel Edwards for 142, the same score he made in Barbados, and Owais Shah, who brainlessly ran himself out within three balls of resuming an innings interrupted by cramp on Friday afternoon.
Once Paul Collingwood and Matt Prior had settled in and embarked on a partnership of 218 that brought centuries for them both, Gayle was quickly back on the ultra-defensive. The quick bowlers were rarely seen again as he relied on an array of part-timers who made little in the way of footmarks. They bowled as wide of the stumps as they dared.
Would the umpires come down hard on them? Not really. Would England twig? Only belatedly. Part of Gayle’s thinking may be based on a feeling that England are short on winning nous. He was not altogether wrong.
If not for Prior’s enterprise, England might have sorely struggled because Collingwood scored only 12 in the first hour. But eventually he refound his touch and accelerated strongly towards lunch, reaching his fourth hundred in 12 Test innings in the final over of the session.
The morning yielded 112 runs from 27 overs, good work by England, but in the face of Gayle’s liquorice allsorts attack they took their foot off the gas in the afternoon.
Only once Prior had reached a second Test century and career-best score in 16 Tests - celebrated with a baby-rocking movement - did England finally go into overdrive, 56 coming off 53 balls after tea.
If England do indeed lose the series, they will doubtless rationalise it as two bad hours in Jamaica costing them dear because since then their batsmen have pretty much had things their own way. Indeed, their progress has been as serene as had been expected when they left home with the cry ringing in their ears: “Fill your boots, lads!” The centuries by Collingwood and Prior yesterday were the team’s seventh and eighth since the jaw-dropping events of Jamaica and their partnership was the ninth in excess of 100 during the same period. For three matches England have been selling their wickets at more than 70 apiece. So far, so facile . . . easy runs against an attack not without talent but lacking the essential discipline required for Test cricket.
But England are not just 1-0 down because of two bad hours in Jamaica. With the ball, they failed to finish the job in St John’s (where they claimed 19 wickets) and never got it started in Barbados (where they were restricted to a measly nine wickets).
Even with a five-man bowling attack here, and one containing in Amjad a bowler who the experts tell us “offers something different”, 20 wickets remains a formidable task on a pitch as slow as this one. There is, though, the promise of turn for England’s two spinners.
The scorched-earth tactics of their opponents will be attacked but England can have little real cause for complaint. For periods of the match at the Antigua Recreation Ground apart, they have not taken the West Indies batsmen out of their comfort zone, an amazing failure considering West Indies have suffered more collapses than the stock market.
At least this series has established that Shah is not the answer to England’s problems at number three, where nobody has scored a century for 10 months. Shah has waited long for a proper Test run but five innings in the Caribbean have provided enough evidence that he lacks the temperament to succeed at this level.
He was again a bag of nerves yesterday, more fidgety that the Duracell Bunny. His three-ball stay summed up his bewildering talent for inspiring and infuriating: first ball solidly defended, the second drilled down the ground for four, the third pushed into the on side for a run that never existed.
Never the fleetest of movers, he was easily beaten home by the throw from substitute fielder Dwayne Bravo. That was the third time in nine Test innings Shah had been run out - and all three times he was the guilty party. It says every bit as much about his chronic tension as the cramp he suffers in his arms and his wooden fielding.
For the first Test of the summer at Lord’s Ravi Bopara should return at three with Andrew Flintoff, provided he is fit, slotting back in at number seven, one place below Prior, who now averages 47.3 in Tests.