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Thursday, May 22, 2025

Late strikes keep Windies afloat after another batting letdown

by

SPORTS DESK
299 days ago
20240727
West Indies' Kraigg Brathwaite in action during day one of the Third Rothesay Test match against the West Indies at Edgbaston, Birmingham, England, yesterday. Brathwaite top-scored with 61 runs. (Nick Potts/PA via AP)

West Indies' Kraigg Brathwaite in action during day one of the Third Rothesay Test match against the West Indies at Edgbaston, Birmingham, England, yesterday. Brathwaite top-scored with 61 runs. (Nick Potts/PA via AP)

Nick Potts

 Birm­ing­ham, Eng­land Three wick­ets—two to pac­er Jay­den Seales—en­abled the West In­dies to fin­ish the day strong­ly against hosts Eng­land af­ter their bat­ting again fell apart in the third Test of the Richards-Both­am Tro­phy Se­ries on Fri­day. 

Seales re­moved open­er Zak Craw­ley and night­watch­man Mark Wood, while new-ball part­ner Alzarri Joseph dis­missed Ben Duck­ett, and Eng­land limped to 38 for three, re­ply­ing to the Caribbean’s first in­nings to­tal of 282, in a brief pe­ri­od of play be­fore the close on the first day of the Test at Edg­bas­ton. 

Half-cen­turies from their cap­tain Kraigg Brath­waite and for­mer cap­tain Ja­son Hold­er had propped up the bat­ting of the vis­i­tors af­ter they won the toss and de­cid­ed to bat. 

Brath­waite hit the top score of 61 and Hold­er sup­port­ed with 59, and they shared im­por­tant part­ner­ships for the first and sixth wick­ets with Mikyle Louis and Joshua Da Sil­va, re­spec­tive­ly, to add some beef to the West In­dies to­tal be­fore they were bowled out about 15 min­utes be­fore the sched­uled close. 

The hunt for ear­ly wick­ets proved fruit­ful for the Caribbean side, with about half an hour avail­able to them be­fore stumps were drawn. 

Seales got Craw­ley and Wood caught at sec­ond slip for 18 and a duck, re­spec­tive­ly—both catch­es tak­en by Hold­er swoop­ing low—and Joseph, hav­ing dropped left-hand­ed open­er Duck­ett in his sec­ond over, bowled him for three off the in­side edge in his third over. 

Seales end­ed the day with two for 19 from four overs, while Ol­lie Pope, not out on six, bat­ted out the re­main­ing 10 min­utes with Joe Root, not out on two of the 14 he re­quires to over­take for­mer West In­dies cap­tain Bri­an Lara at No. 7 on the all-time list of scor­ers in the for­mat. 

Ear­li­er, Brath­waite shared 76 for the first wick­et with Louis, but they were two of the five wick­ets that fell in the span of an hour ei­ther side of lunch that had the Caribbean side wob­bling on 115 for five be­fore Hold­er and Joshua Da Sil­va came to the res­cue with a stand of 109.

Da Sil­va made 49 and Louis added 26, but none of the vis­i­tors’ oth­er bats­men reached 20. 

Pac­er Gus Atkin­son led the Eng­land bowl­ing with four for 67 from 20 overs, Chris Woakes bagged three for 69 from 18 overs, and Wood grabbed two for 52 from 16 overs. 

Be­fore lunch, Brath­waite de­fied sev­er­al blows to the body from the Eng­land pac­ers to reach his first half-cen­tu­ry in nine Test in­nings, span­ning more than a year, when he nudged his 70th ball from his op­po­site num­ber, Ben Stokes, through a back­ward square leg for a sin­gle. 

Brath­waite and Louis got through a test­ing first hour to give the West In­dies a sol­id foun­da­tion, but care­less bat­ting in the fi­nal half-hour be­fore the in­ter­val and the Caribbean side wob­bling on 97 for three. 

Louis was caught be­hind off Atkin­son for 26, left-han­der McKen­zie hit three bound­aries in 12 in a brief stay at the crease be­fore Wood beat him and bowled him for pace, and Athanaze, one of the bat­ting he­roes from the sec­ond Test at Trent Bridge, was bowled for two, drag­ging on an ill-ad­vised pull at a short ball from Atkin­son.

Af­ter lunch, Hold­er and Da Sil­va sta­bilised the West In­dies and frus­trat­ed Eng­land, and the West In­dies reached 194 for five at tea. 

The Caribbean side stum­bled to 115 for three at tea af­ter Brath­waite was caught be­hind down the leg-side fenc­ing at a short ball from Wood, and Woakes bowled Kavem Hodge, their bat­ting hero from the pre­vi­ous Test, for 13 two balls lat­er when the diminu­tive Do­mini­can bats­man of­fered no stroke to a de­liv­ery mov­ing back. 

Hold­er and Da Sil­va ab­sorbed the pres­sure of the sit­u­a­tion, and con­di­tions eased con­sid­er­ably with the Eng­land pac­ers un­able to get much move­ment through the air or off the pitch. The pair mount­ed acts of de­fi­ance to see the West In­dies through to the break with­out any fur­ther loss. 

Af­ter tea, Hold­er drove the first ball of a new spell from Woakes through mid-off for a deuce to reach his 50 from 92 balls and bring up the cen­tu­ry mark in the part­ner­ship with Da Sil­va. 

But Da Sil­va, near­ing his 50, be­came rest­less and was even­tu­al­ly caught be­hind off Woakes for 49, nib­bling out­side the off-stump at a de­liv­ery of no great mer­it.

Hold­er and Joseph inched the vis­i­tors clos­er to 250, but the West In­dies vice cap­tain again proved un­re­li­able when he was caught at mid-on off Woakes, play­ing an ill-ad­vised slog. 

Hold­er was bowled by Atkin­son in the next over, and the Caribbean side lost their last four wick­ets for 38 in the span of 44 balls.

The West In­dies made one change to their line-up from the pre­vi­ous Test, while Eng­land were un­changed. 

The Caribbean side were forced to rule out off-spin­ner Kevin Sin­clair af­ter he sus­tained a frac­tured fore­arm when he was struck by a bounc­er from Wood that dis­missed him in the sec­ond Test.

Left-arm spin­ner and fel­low Guyanese Gu­dakesh Motie, who came down with the flu and missed the sec­ond Test, re­turns to the line-up af­ter re­cov­er­ing from the ill­ness. 

West In­dies trail 2-0 in the three-match se­ries af­ter they lost the first Test that end­ed two Fri­days ago—in­side three days—by an in­nings and 114 runs at Lord’s and the sec­ond Test that fin­ished last Sun­day—in­side four days—by 241 runs at Trent Bridge. 

The West In­dies have won four and lost three of their 10 pre­vi­ous Tests at Edg­bas­ton, with two of the de­feats com­ing in their last three vis­its in 2004 and 2017, which was al­so the first pink-ball Test in Eng­land. 

Seales, who is play­ing his 13th Test, re­quires on­ly one more wick­et to reach 50 in his ca­reer, and a hun­dred from Root will draw him lev­el with Alas­tair Cook, on 33, for the most by an Eng­land bats­man.

Sum­merise Scores

WEST IN­DIES 282 (Kraigg Brath­waite 61, Ja­son Hold­er 59, Joshua Da Sil­va 49, Mikyle Louis 26; Gus Atkin­son 4-67, Chris Woakes 3-69, Mark Wood 2-52).

ENG­LAND 38 for three (Jay­den Seales 2-19).

Po­si­tion: Eng­land trail by 244 with sev­en

first in­nings wick­ets stand­ing.

Toss: West In­dies.

Um­pires: Adri­an Hold­stock (South Africa), Nitin Menon (In­dia).

TV um­pire: Rod Tuck­er (Aus­tralia).

Match ref­er­ee: Jav­a­gal Sri­nath (In­dia).

Re­serve um­pire: Rus­sell War­ren.

(CMC)


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