LON­DON – An all too fa­mil­iar sto­ry­line played out at Lord’s on Wednes­day (Ju­ly 10), as West In­dies suf­fered a first in­nings bat­ting im­plo­sion, to find them­selves al­ready bat­tling for sur­vival fol­low­ing the open­ing day of the first Test.

Carved open by a sev­en-wick­et haul by debu­tant speed­ster Gus Atkin­son (7-45), the Caribbean side were rolled over for 121 about 50 min­utes be­fore tea, to post their third low­est to­tal at the his­toric venue in north-west Lon­don.

Open­er Mikyle Louis sparkled briefly on de­but for his top score of 27 while fel­low rook­ies Kavem Hodge (24) and Al­ick Athanaze (23) got starts, but no oth­er bats­man passed 20 as West In­dies col­lapsed from 88 for three af­ter lunch to lose their last sev­en wick­ets for 33 runs.

Eng­land’s bats­men then quick­ly gave them com­mand of the con­test, Zak Craw­ley (76) and Ol­lie Pope (57) pum­mel­ing half-cen­turies to lift the hosts to 189 for three at the close – a lead of 68 runs.

Seam­er Jay­den Seales, in his first Test for 19 months, led the West In­dies at­tack with two for 31, get­ting the key wick­et of top-scor­er Craw­ley.

“I think they were fair­ly bowl­ing friend­ly con­di­tions pri­or to and just af­ter lunch and added to that, I think Eng­land re­al­ly ex­ploit­ed the con­di­tions re­al­ly well,” said West In­dies as­sis­tant coach, Jim­my Adams.

“They were con­sis­tent, they got the ball to swing, they didn’t give us many free-bees and maybe [there was] a lit­tle bit of in­ex­pe­ri­ence on our part as well, so I think it was a com­bi­na­tion of those is­sues.”

Louis looked the part in be­com­ing the first Test crick­eter from St Kitts, punch­ing four fours and a six – an au­da­cious whip over back­ward square off seam­er Chris Woakes – as he dom­i­nat­ed a 34-run open­ing stand with cap­tain Kraigg Brath­waite (6).

With the first hour ap­proach­ing, Brath­waite played on to a wide de­liv­ery from Atkin­son to mar the oc­ca­sion of his 90th Test, and his dis­missal trig­gered a slide where three wick­ets tum­bled for 10 runs.

Left-han­der Kirk McKen­zie (1) gave Atkin­son his sec­ond wick­et when he edged to Craw­ley at sec­ond slip and Louis per­ished with the lunch in­ter­val in sight, tak­en low down at third slip by Har­ry Brook off cap­tain and medi­um pac­er Ben Stokes.

Hodge and Athanaze then com­bined in the best stand of the in­nings, putting on 44 for the fourth wick­et to take West In­dies to lunch on 61 with­out fur­ther loss and de­ny Eng­land any im­me­di­ate suc­cess af­ter the re­sump­tion.

The right-hand­ed Hodge faced 48 balls in just over an hour and struck three fours and a six while left-han­der Athanaze count­ed three fours in just un­der an hour at the crease.

Atkin­son broke the stand then up­end­ed the in­nings al­to­geth­er when he re­moved Athanaze and all-rounder Ja­son Hold­er in suc­ces­sive de­liv­er­ies, be­fore al­so pris­ing out wick­et­keep­er Joshua Da Sil­va in the same over.

Athanaze squirt­ed a straight­for­ward catch to Joe Root at first slip, Hold­er edged to Brook at third slip af­ter be­ing squared up while Da Sil­va in­side-edged a catch to debu­tant wick­et­keep­er Jamie Smith al­so with­out scor­ing.

Tot­ter­ing on 88 for sev­en, there was no re­cov­ery for West In­dies even though Alzarri Joseph struck a few lofty blows in a nine-ball 17.

West In­dies hit back be­fore tea, how­ev­er, Seales get­ting Ben Duck­ett (3) to edge a dri­ve be­hind in the fi­nal over be­fore the in­ter­val with 29 on the board.

But Craw­ley dom­i­nat­ed, belt­ing 14 fours in an 89-ball knock as he put on 94 for the sec­ond wick­et with Pope, who faced 74 de­liv­er­ies and count­ed 11 bound­aries.

Hold­er even­tu­al­ly hit Pope in front and Craw­ley added a fur­ther 30 for the third with Joe Root (15 not out) be­fore hav­ing his leg stump pegged back by a Seales york­er.

Brook ar­rived to de­ny West In­dies any fur­ther suc­cess, stroking an un­beat­en 25 off 29 de­liv­er­ies in a 36-run, un­bro­ken fourth wick­et stand with Root.

Scores:

WEST IN­DIES 121 (Mikyle Louis 27, Kavem Hodge 24, Al­ick Athanaze 23; Gus Atkin­son 7-45)

ENG­LAND 189 for three (Zak Craw­ley 76, Ol­lie Pope 57, Har­ry Brook 25 not out; Jay­den Seales 2-31)

CMC