Carlos Brathwaite has questioned whether England’s first Test against the West Indies should have dragged out until the final scheduled over of the fifth day.
The match in Antigua finished in a draw after Nkrumah Bonner and Jason Holder batted together for more than 25 overs, with England skipper Joe Root refusing to shake hands and end the match until there were five balls left.
Asked if he believed the match had gone on longer than it needed to, Brathwaite, the all-rounder who last played for the West Indies in 2019, told BT Sport: “In my opinion, it did.
“If I were Kraigg Brathwaite or any of the senior players in that dressing room, I would have found it a bit disrespectful that in the last hour, with two set batsmen batting the way they were, the pitch offering nothing, that England still felt as though they could get six wickets, in 10, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four… up until five balls left.
“If you want to become a top team, you have to think like a top team. The West Indies may not be there yet, but the mentality has to be: would England have done that if it were an Ashes Test? Would they have done that against New Zealand, India, Pakistan? I think the answer is no, so why have they done it against us?
“If they [West Indies] need any sort of steely determination added, I think that passage of play should have given them it.”
The second Test of the three-match series gets underway on March 16.
