Cricket made its international comeback amidst the coronavirus pandemic at Southampton where the current ODI World Cup winners were challenged by the T20 champions. After a long gap of 117 days, it was a moment to cherish for every cricket fanatic as they were about to witness live action of cricket.
Ben Stokes was handed the responsibility to lead the England side in absence of the regular captain, Joe Roots who is on a break for the birth of his second child. The new normal sink with no fans present in the stadium to cheer for their favorite players. WI aim to end the drought of winning on the English soil for the first time since 1988, while the hosts faced a major challenge to threaten their opponents cashing in their rich -experienced bowling line-up as the other department of batting seemed comparatively fragile.
West Indies took little time to dominate the hosts and with early blow and hence capitalize on the game early on. A career-best Test bowling figures for the WI captain Jason Holder helped the visitors dominate the hosts on the second day after bad light forced early stumps on the initial day of the encounter. Capitalizing on the pitch conditions, the pace-duo of Jason Holder- Shannon Gabriel, made the hosts regret their choice of having elected to bat first.
The right-arm-fast-medium Trinidadian- Gabriel introduced himself in the game as early in his first over as England faced an early blow in form of Dominic Sibley. The benefits of Holder captaincy were evident from the fact that he stood firm on his decision of long spells of pace bowling. The experienced duo of Ben Stokes and Jos Butler added a crucial partnership in the middle of the English innings and added crucial 70 runs when the half of the batting side was dismantled before 100. However, the smooth partnership was put to a sudden halt as a result of successive blows from Holder in his successive overs. As a result, England was bowled for 204.
A great dose of discipline added with an improvement in the weather forecast ideal for batting had put WI in a strong position as they managed to build-up small partnerships for every wicket despite the regular breakthroughs by the English pace duo of James Anderson-Ben Stokes. The spell from the English captain, added a major dent to the WI batting as he picked the maximum of 4 wickets from the shortest spell as compared to the other English bowlers.
Half-centuries from Kraigg Braithwaite (65) and Shane Dowrich (61) stitched an important partnership for WI later in their innings for the 6th wicket, which not only helped the team to bail out of trouble, but also take an advantage of 114 runs lead.
The hosts, England focused on balancing the situation as they aim to overturn the scenario and grab on the lost momentum in the Test match. The top-order and middle-order seemed more subtle in their approach as compared to the 1st innings. As the scorecard read 168/3 at Tea with useful contribution from the top-order, English captain- Ben Stokes along with Zak Crawley had an unfinished task on their cards of increasing the scoring rate and set a defendable target for the home side. The pair added a crucial 98-run partnership for the 4th wicket as the hosts paced up their lead and moved ahead successfully in setting up a defendable target as the game moved to the final day where the probability of a result-driven encounter seemed a great possibility.
The final day of Test unleashed at Southampton as the Windies looked to wrap up the English tailenders quickly. An aggressive field-setup by the Jason Holder was evident from the scenario as he had set a special field of 2 slips, leg slip and a man on the forward slip. A mini cameo from Archer-Anderson as the duo hit 4 boundaries in equal number of ovesr guided the English innings to 313; thereby setting up the target of 200 for the Windies in the 4th innings.
WI had never lost a Test while chasing 200 or below and it was a huge responsibility bestowed upon the Windies batting unit to defend the statistics. However, Jason Holder led WI didn’t have an ideal start as Jofra Archer’s length ball proved to be a costlier one for the highest run-getter for the Windies in the 1st innings, Braithwaite as the right-hander misjudged the length ball to play it off the inside half of his bat as he felt cheaply for 4 runs. Brooks soon followed the way back to pavilion without any further addition to the scoreboard.
A replacement bought into the bowling by Stokes proved fruitful for the hosts as Mark Wood hit the nail with the priceless scalp of Shai Hope in his very 1st over. At the time of lunch, WI faced threats of defending their statistical record of having never lost a Test while chasing 200 or below. However, with 73 overs left in the kitty for the day’s play, the current batting pair of Blackwood and Roston Chase kept their nerves under control and kept the scorecard progressing steadily towards the target without any further hurdle.
Attacking on the loose balls and not falling under the trap of Stokes-Archer, the duo stitched a crucial partnership surviving a run-out chance just before the scheduled drinks break. With the target being achieved mid-way, Jof was successful to find Chase completely off-guard as half of their side was dismantled including the retired Campbell.
The right-handed Barbadian- Jermaine Blackwood missed out on his ton getting caught off the bowling of the England skipper Stokes. However, his part was done and the Windies lower-order maintained their calm and drove the visitors home for a deserving win.
