Da Silva drags West Indies to 28-run lead

(ESPNCRICINFO) – Some 13 000km lie between Lahore and St George’s, and a similar distance would appear to lie between the teams that have been taking part in their respective Test series- deciders. If Pat Cummins’ Australians have just demonstrated, in their hard-fought series victory over Pakistan, that a side blessed with great bowlers can transcend any conditions, then England and West Indies would appear to be hostages to a less palatable truth.

On the face of it, the decisive third Test in Grenada could scarcely be more intricately poised. By the close of the second day’s play, West Indies’ lower order had chiselled out a precious lead of 28, and every extra run looks set to be vital on a two-paced surface that promises awkward times ahead in even the most nominal of fourth-innings chases.

And yet, the evidence of the first two innings has been revealing.
Two flawed teams, battling with their own insecurities, with bat and ball alike, with each facet of their play winning out at alternate moments, with the implacable obstinacy of a ‘push-me-pull-you’.

On the first day, England collapsed in seaming conditions to 114 for 9, before their tenth-wicket pair cashed in on the softer old ball to ease to a serene 90-run stand. And on the second, West Indies staged a near-replica of their own – a collapse of seven for 78, either side of lunch, as Chris Woakes dragged his length back and with it, fleetingly, his reputation in overseas conditions, then a late-evening revival with Joshua da Silva’s diligent 54 not out to the fore, as West Indies’ eighth and ninth wickets racked up 104 series-tilting runs.

And by the close, England were huffing and puffing as if they were back in Antigua or Barbados – including with the second new ball, which came and went six anodyne overs with as little malice as the first.

And in the contest’s final analysis, the combined analysis of 72 for 0 that West Indies have been able to pick off while those balls have been at its hardest may yet prove to be pivotal. For whatever else England may have achieved in the name of their red-ball reset, finding an answer to their toothless-ness up top is not one of them.

That said, the most successful of England’s bowlers in the innings to date is that man Woakes, although his current analysis of 20-6-48-3 – already his second-best in 20 overseas Tests – tells only a fraction of his story.

Prior to this series, West Indies’ openers, Kraigg Brathwaite and John Campbell, had not made a half-century stand on home soil since England’s last visit to the Caribbean in 2019 – and they’ve never yet made a century-stand in 35 attempts, the most by a top-order pair in Test history.

They have, however, now racked up three fifty-stands in as many Tests this series, including this latest effort – a disarmingly serene alliance of 50 that, in following directly on from Jack Leach’s and Saqib Mahmood’s casual progress on the first evening, appeared to confirm that the spice of the first morning had long since been and gone.

But just as had been the case with their guileless first innings in Antigua, Woakes and Craig Overton were culpable in floating the ball up too full and wide for a cracked surface that demanded the ball be driven into the deck to extract the uneven bounce, and both men were all too easily thwarted as England’s first-innings 204 was made to look grossly inadequate.

But then Ben Stokes, inevitably, showed the way with a back-of-a-length shin-smasher to dislodge Brathwaite for his lowest score of the series, and one over later, Campbell got in a tangle to a fearsome visor-smasher from Overton.

He carried on after a mandatory concussion test, but the success of that length was an indication of the threat that lingered, if England were willing to test the facilities.

Sure enough, Mahmood was the next to drag his own length back to pin Shamarh Brooks in front of leg-stump, and then, six balls later and in the penultimate over of the session, Overton’s aggression into Campbell’s body paid dividends, as he scuffed an attempted pull down the leg-side, and was sent on his way after a review.

SCOREBOARD
ENGLAND 1st innings 204
WEST INDIES 1st innings
K. Brathwaite lbw b Stokes 17
J. Campbell c wkp. Foakes b Overton 35
S. Brooks lbw b Mahmood 13
N. Bonner c wkp. Foakes b Woakes 4
J. Blackwood lbw b Woakes 18
J. Holder c Bairstow b Woakes 0
K. Mayers c Mahmood b Stokes 28
J. Da Silva not out 25
A. Joseph c wkp. Foakes b Overton 28
K. Roach not out 54
Extras: (b-1, lb-7, w-2) 10
Total: (8 wkts, 86 overs) 232
Fall of wickets: 1-50, 2-68, 3-69, 4-82, 5-82, 6-95, 7-128, 8-177.
Bowling: Woakes 20-6-48-3 (w-1), Overton 20-1-71-2 (w-1), Mahmood 18-7-39-1, Stokes 16-2-40-2, Leach 12-3-26-0.
Position: West Indies lead by 28 runs.