-Broad second youngest to 500 Test wickets

By Clifton Ross
England’s superstar duo of Stuart Broad and Ben Stokes single-handedly engineered a historic come-from-behind series win over West Indies; as the hosts destroyed their old rivals in both the batting and bowling departments.

Joe Root and his men will now retire the Wisden Trophy which is being substituted with the Richards/Botham Trophy for future series between the two sides, honoring their legendary cavaliers Sir Vivian Richards and Sir Ian Botham.

Looking at the two departments respectively, England outplayed the Windies in both key aspects of the game which batting and bowling. Even fielding-wise, the home team continued to set the benchmark for other side with regard to impressive fielding in English conditions.
Windies had a stop-start series as a number of batsmen like Jermaine Blackwood, Kraigg Brathwaite and Roston Chase looked set for a big score at least by the end of the 3 matches. Sadly, it was the 3 aforementioned batsmen who managed to squeeze their way into the top 10.
Coming in at number 4 was the Windies’ best batsman Blackwood who had the team’s top individual score of 95, finished with 211 runs at an average of 35.16 with two fifty plus scores.

Fifth place saw the classy Shamarh Brooks again showing his talents, narrowly missing the 200-run mark. The Barbados stroke-maker finished with an average of 48 plus and had two key back-to-back knocks of 62 and 68 in the 2nd Test.

Opener Brathwaite landed the 6th spot with 176 runs and 2 half-centuries under his belt including a gritty top-score of 75. His fellow Bajan countryman Chase, sealed off the 7th and last spot with 157 runs and 51 being his highest score.
With only 4 batsmen in the top 10 ranks, it was pretty clear that England dominated that department. Stand-in skipper for the first Test Ben Stokes warranted his promotion and trust from the England camp as he finished the series in the number one spot.

The all-rounder smoked a magical 176 in the second Test, the highest individual score of the series. The 29 year-old finished with a whopping 363 runs at a staggering average of 90.75 thanks mainly to his century and the 78 not out which he scored in the same match

The battle for second leading run-getter in the series saw a friendly tussle between openers Dom Sibley and Rory Burns. Burns won the encounter by a few runs, amassing 234 runs with 2 fifties and a best of 90 while Sibley, who came in 3rd played equally fell to end the series with 226 runs.

Sibley however finished with the better batting stats, as the right-hander chalked up classy scores of 50, 120 and 56 in the three respective Test matches. Wicket-keeper/batsman Jos Buttler (151 runs), Ollie Pope (134 runs) and captain Joe Root who missed the first game (130 runs); sealed off the 8th, 9th and 10th spots.
There was stiff competition however in the bowling departments, as the West Indies pacers got off to a lethal start after winning the first game for their team. Although Shannon Gabriel made a superstar comeback from injury to bag a total of 11 wickets which put in the number 3 position for most scalps in the series; it was Stuart Broad who dominated the tour with ball in hand.

Broad became only the fourth fast-bowler and 7th overall to join the elite esteemed members of 500-plus wickets in Test cricket Club. At 34 years of age, the right-arm quick also became the second youngest to achieve this feat, trailing the great Sri Lankan spinner Muttiah Muralitharan who did it when was 31 years-old.
His 10 wickets in the 3rd Test, the only 10-fer by a bowler in the series was instrumental in snuffing out the Windies who lost by a mammoth 269 runs, despite rain ruling out play on the penultimate day of play.

Backup came from fellow right-arm pacer Chris Woakes who tied with Gabriel for 11 wickets but finished in 2nd position due to his average of 16.63 compared to the West Indian speedster’s 32.27.
Again is was a 6-4 ratio win for England, who had 6 of their ball operators finish in the top 10 while West Indies just had four bowlers who stood out. Outside of the top 3 bowlers, only Windies Captain Jason Holder who came in 4th and the all-rounder Chase who ended in the 5th spot; with 10 wickets apiece, reached double figures in scalps.

Broad also joined the history books as a batsman after his 62 in the 2nd innings of the last match was among the fastest in Test cricket for his country. In all, England ticked all the necessary boxes; bowlers were consistent in their returns, fielding was on point and their batsmen did well to convert a few of their starts to hundreds.