Familiar failings undermine England top order before tail comes to the rescue in fine style
Andrew Miller24-Mar-2022Close England 204 (Mahmood 49, Leach 41*, Seales 3-40) vs West IndiesIf variety is the spice of the Spice Island, then the pitch at St George’s served up a two-course taster on the first day in Grenada. After ten days of often enervating attrition in Antigua and Barbados, the façade of English batting competence crumbled at the first sign of heat from a pumped-up West Indies seam attack, before a mighty final-session rescue act from England’s tenth-wicket pair dropped a sizeable hint that the truest mischief in the surface had already been and gone.And by the close, who could rightly say where the balance of the series truly lay? In slumping to a nadir of 67 for 7 in the hour after lunch – a passage of play that included three key wickets for no runs in ten balls, and six consecutive single-figure scores from Nos. 2 to 7 – England seemed hell-bent on resetting their very own red-ball reset. After the earnest insistences from Joe Root and Paul Collingwood that lessons had been learned and progress had been made since the all-too-recent misery of the Ashes, the hyper-implausible figure of Kyle Mayers begged to differ, as his startling morning figures of 5-5-0-2 instigated a collapse that could have come straight out of Scott Boland’s playbook.But then, out of the wreckage strode the batting saviours of Jack Leach – still as diffident as ever, even with his contrasting heroics at Headingley and Lord’s to serve as cult-status proof of his unlikely prowess – and England’s newest recruit Saqib Mahmood, who fell to the day’s final ball for an agonising 49, the highest score of his professional career. With Leach left high and dry on 41 not out, Nos. 10 and 11 had top-scored in a Test innings for the first time since 1885, when Australia’s Tom Garrett and Edwin Evans had made 51 not out and 33 not out respectively, in what turned out to be a thrilling six-run win against England.Related
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Only time will tell whether this stand will be as critical, but together Leach and Mahmood sapped the resolve of an all-too-easily deflated West Indies attack, whose collective legs were weary after the exhaustions of the first two Tests, and whose adrenaline bonked all too soon after the fall of Chris Woakes to the second ball after tea – at which point, with England in tatters at 114 for 9, their opponents seemed mentally to check out and put their pads on in anticipation of what promised to be the decisive innings of the series. They were still waiting, 90 runs and more than 46 overs later.Nevertheless, the final analysis of England’s innings revealed two men with scores in the 40s, and next to nothing else – and so on balance, West Indies’ decision to bowl first remained amply justified, even in a topsy-turvy fashion.From the outset it had been clear that a cracked and grassy surface with more than a hint of moisture underneath would be a prime bowl-first deck. However, when Kraigg Brathwaite unleashed an apparent four-pronged seam attack, following the decision to reinforce their batting at the expense of the spinner, Veerasammy Permaul, few could have expected it would be that extra batter, Mayers, who would prove to be the morning’s most penetrative option.For the first 40 minutes of the day, England’s openers Alex Lees and Zak Crawley seemed just about to have the measure of conditions that were closer to Chester-le-Street and Canterbury than they had faced all winter, as they withstood a torrid but occasionally over-eager burst from Jayden Seales in particular, to inch along to 23 for 0.But then West Indies clocked that less might well be more on a surface offering purchase for those who were willing to grip the ball on the track in the manner of an old-fashioned English seamer. And so Mayers, with his Darren Stevens-esque medium-paced wobblers, was tossed the ball in advance of West Indies’ fastest option, Alzarri Joseph. And from that moment on, it was a different dynamic.Kyle Mayers grabbed two early wickets for West Indies•Associated Press
Crawley, a centurion in Antigua, quickly lost patience with Mayers’ impertinence in the channel outside off. Having made his discipline on the drive such a feature of that apparent breakthrough innings, it was a familiar failing that sent him on his way for 7 as he flung his hands through a cunningly bowled legcutter, and spooned a simple chance to Brathwaite in the covers.Enter Root, with a hundred in each of the first two Tests of the series, but reunited with a situation more akin to England’s collapse to 48 for 4 on the first morning of the series in Antigua. And Mayers never offered him a chance to settle. His fourth ball hit the seam and wobbled wildly round Root’s outside edge; five balls later, Mayers scrambled that same seam, and kissed the edge of a defensive push down the line to have Root caught behind for a nine-ball duck.Lees’ introduction to the Test team has now featured a new highest score in four of his five innings, which must count as progress of sorts. He played a compact holding role throughout the morning session, but before England’s position could be claimed to have improved, they were three-down for 46 at lunch. Dan Lawrence – another player who seemed to have made visible strides in the first two Tests – had no answer as Seales returned with his discipline reframed. Despite burning a review after been pinned on the knee-roll by a nipbacker, he was sent on his way for 8 from 31 balls.In Antigua, England’s pre-lunch struggles had proven to be their nadir; here, however, they was merely the prelude. Four overs after the break, Ben Stokes – his blood pumping after a restorative century in Barbados – tried to take on Joseph’s short ball, and shovelled a spliced pull straight back into the bowler’s lap for 2 (53 for 4).Five balls and no runs later, Lees’ vigil was ended in uncompromising fashion by a pumped-up Roach, who was adamant that he’d found the edge two balls earlier, but when Brathwaite declined to waste his final review, he merely bombed the edge from round the wicket once more, and this time there was no doubt as Joshua da Silva sent him on his way for 31 (53 for 5).And then, as if it prove that the events of the previous fortnight had been a fever-dream, Jonny Bairstow capped England’s dramatic reversion to the mean with their third wicket for no runs in the space of 10 balls. Joseph – easily the quickest bowler on either side in the absence of Mark Wood – bent his back on another off-stump lifter, and Bairstow nicked off to da Silva for the 15th duck of his Test career, and his fifth since the start of 2021.From 53 for 6, it was now a familiar race to the bottom for England’s lower order. Ben Foakes was duly pinned on the crease as Seales ripped a bail-trimmer through his defences for 7, at which point England’s run of scores – +31 708207 – read like they were planning an international call to the Netherlands to fill the dead playing time on the final two days of this Test (though hopefully not for a T20I, to judge by past experience).Saqib Mahmood produced unexpected resistance from No. 11•Getty Images
At least Chris Woakes and Craig Overton broke the run of single-digit scores, not that this had been their original plan for first-day heroics, following their unlikely (and some might say, unwarranted) reprieves in England’s seam attack. But Roach prised them apart after an eighth-wicket stand of 23 – at the time, England’s joint-best of the innings – as he leapt wide on the crease to spear an outstanding nip-backer into the top of off stump (90 for 8).Woakes held the line well for the remainder of the session – during which time, in the absence of a regular spinner, Brathwaite even turned to Nkrumah Bonner and Jermaine Blackwood for an over apiece of speculative moon-balls. It seemed he had merely been stalling for time, especially when Woakes drove loosely at his second ball after the break to be bowled by Seales for 25. But it didn’t quite turn out like that.At first it was simply a matter of holding up an end – and few batters do that better than Leach, as shown by that epic 1 not out alongside Stokes three years ago. But as their stand extended, and both men’s eyes got in, a late-evening counterattack was the order of the day. Mayers, brought back in the hope of more magic, was slapped into the stands by Mahmood, while Leach’s love of a length ball became more and more apparent as he brought his favourite cover-drive out of mothballs.The new ball came and went, with ample swing but no major threat, but Blackwood’s return for the day’s final over proved a passion-killer for Mahmood, as he thwacked a fierce drive through the line to move to the brink of a memorable fifty, only to get too greedy to his very next ball, and under-edge a wild hoick into his own stumps. Nevertheless, he had given his team a chance – and his A game is still to come on what promises to be a pivotal second day.