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Thursday, January 23, 2025

Windies looking to fight ‘every session’, – Brathwaite

by

SPORTS DESK
181 days ago
20240726
West Indies’ Jayden Seales celebrates the wicket of England’s Ben Duckett, not in picture, on day one of the first Rothesay Men’s Test match at Lord’s Cricket Ground, London on Wednesday, July 10, 2024. Seales took 4 for 77. (Steven Paston/PA via AP)

West Indies’ Jayden Seales celebrates the wicket of England’s Ben Duckett, not in picture, on day one of the first Rothesay Men’s Test match at Lord’s Cricket Ground, London on Wednesday, July 10, 2024. Seales took 4 for 77. (Steven Paston/PA via AP)

Steven Paston

Birm­ing­ham, Eng­land, USA - With the mem­o­ries of the West In­dies’ fourth-day col­lapse at Trent Bridge still fresh, cap­tain Kraigg Brath­waite called on his smart side on Thurs­day to re­main fo­cused for the en­tire­ty of the fi­nal Test which starts on Fri­day if they were to sal­vage any­thing from the three-match se­ries.

The Caribbean side com­pet­ed for the bet­ter part of four days of the sec­ond Test be­fore a shock­ing col­lapse in the fi­nal ses­sion saw them dis­missed for 143 in their sec­ond in­nings, leav­ing them with a heavy 241-run de­feat.

Brath­waite spear­head­ed a 61-run open­ing stand be­fore 10 wick­ets tum­bled for 82 runs in the fi­nal hour.

“We had a 50-run open­ing stand, and then from there we lost 10 wick­ets quite quick­ly,” Brath­waite told re­porters ahead of the start of the fi­nal Test on Fri­day.

“And we knew we were in the game, so it goes to show in terms of the [fi­nal hour] that you’ve got to be on it al­ways, not just for the first three days. As soon as you lose that fo­cus, things can go wrong.

“And it could be as a bowl­ing unit or a bat­ting unit, and you lose [your fo­cus] for an hour; you could be be­hind the test match and lose it.

“We should learn from that, and ob­vi­ous­ly the les­son for that is to nev­er take any­thing for grant­ed, al­ways hav­ing the same at­ti­tude as in the first and sec­ond in­nings of bat­ting and bowl­ing.

“And once we keep that at­ti­tude of fight­ing every ses­sion, I think that will serve us well.”

The de­feat at Trent Bridge saw the West In­dies sur­ren­der the Richards-Both­am Tro­phy, the first Test at Lord’s hav­ing end­ed in an in­nings and 114-run loss with­in three days.

For the West In­dies, the re­sults ex­tend­ed their woe­ful run on Eng­lish soil over the last 20 years, hav­ing now lost 15 of their 19 Tests dur­ing that pe­ri­od.

Brath­waite con­ced­ed that his side had played well in patch­es across both Tests in the se­ries, es­pe­cial­ly in the sec­ond, where Kavem Hodge struck a maid­en Test hun­dred and Al­ick Athanaze and Joshua Da Sil­va gath­ered half-cen­turies.

Fast bowler Jay­den Seales has so far tak­en 10 wick­ets, but Brath­waite said over­all, the team need­ed to be more con­sis­tent.

“I think all-around we [haven’t] put it to­geth­er as yet. Ob­vi­ous­ly, we bat­ted well at Trent Bridge [in the first in­ning]. We didn’t bat well in the sec­ond in­ning, and we bowled well in pieces,” Brath­waite point­ed out.

“Dropped chances will hap­pen, but I think our group­ings as a bowl­ing unit weren’t as they should be.. I think once we get that per­cent­age up, we’ll be able to cre­ate more chances and at least be able to stop the flow of runs on both sides of the wick­et.”

The West In­dies have been forced in­to a few changes, with off-spin­ning all-rounder Kevin Sin­clair out with a frac­tured arm and fast bowler Je­re­mi­ah Louis, yet to fea­ture in the se­ries, side­lined with a ham­string in­jury.

Rook­ie pace­man Shamar Joseph is al­so bat­tling the flu and re­mains a doubt for the en­counter.

TEAMS

ENG­LAND – Ben Stokes (cap­tain), Zak Craw­ley, Ben Duck­ett, Ol­lie Pope, Joe Root, Har­ry Brook, Jamie Smith, Chris Woakes, Gus Atkin­son, Mark Wood, Shoaib Bashir

WEST IN­DIES – Kraigg Brath­waite (cap­tain), Mikyle Louis, Kirk McKen­zie, Al­ick Athanaze, Kavem Hodge, Ja­son Hold­er, Joshua da Sil­va, Gu­dakesh Motie, Alzarri Joseph, Shamar Joseph/Akeem Jor­dan, Jay­den Seales

(CMC)


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