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Unchanged England seek 3-0, as Test cricket desperately seeks a contest
The West Indies Test team suffered a huge batting collapse in the second innings of the second Test. (Getty Images)
(ESPN Cricinfo) – They were putting out the bunting ever so briefly at Trent Bridge last week. Roll up, roll up, free entry for the fifth and final day! Relive the glories of that first heady summer of Bazball in 2022… marvel at the chutzpah! Swoon at the strokeplay! Savour the glorious uncertainty of Test cricket at its finest!
At 61 for 0 chasing 385, it was all systems go for a marketing coup de theatre to rival that which Jonny Bairstow delivered so gloriously on this same ground two years ago… until all of a sudden it wasn’t. Instead, ten West Indies wickets tumbled in the space of 23.1 overs, five of them to another precocious display of attacking offspin from Shoaib Bashir, and that, as they say, was that.
Despite the obvious euphoria among the England players and the fans in the ground who were lucky enough to witness the dramatic denouement, it was hard to escape an underlying sense of deflation at West Indies’ demise. For three days and two sessions, they punched eagerly above their weight, with Kavem Hodge’s wonderful maiden century the centrepiece of their efforts.
But despite making 457 at Trent Bridge to secure a first-innings lead of 41, West Indies have now been bowled out for a sum total of 400 runs in their other three innings of the series – 121, 136 and 143. No one has made so much as a half-century in those efforts, while the only England bowler who is currently averaging more than 25 for the series is the phenomenally luckless Mark Wood, whose scorchingly quick spells helped prise more than a few openings at the other end.
The overall impression is of a series dripping with goodwill, and underpinned by an almost patronising desire for an equal contest to break out, but one in which the sport’s structural issues are sure to win out in the end. Nasser Hussain on Sky Sports likened the Trent Bridge Test to an arm-wrestle, in which the effort it took simply to stay vertical eventually gave way to a splat of forearm on table-top. Can West Indies find the strength to go again? A fair few day three and four ticket-holders will be anxiously urging them to dig deep.
There is, of course, another factor nudging into the picture during this Test. The fourth season of the Hundred got underway earlier this week, a tournament that was expressly commissioned to help future-proof the English summer. However, the very fact of its existence continues to gnaw at the fabric of English Test cricket.
Jimmy Adams and Mikyle Louis chat during West Indies’ practice session (PA Photos/Getty Images)
We’re not quite going to face the optics of an entire summer with no August Test match, as was the case during the Ashes last year, but the alternative isn’t ideal either. What’s the message this scheduling sends from on high? Move along, nothing to see here? All aboard the shiny new gravy-train? Or does the grand old game dig in and fight for its pre-eminence against its new salty-snacked overlords?
With the greatest respect to England’s efforts to inspire with their unfettered approach to Test cricket, the extent to which Test cricket fights its corner this week rests unfairly and unequally on the shoulders of the team that is already 2-0 down.
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