On decks as lifeless as the one served up at Barbados you need to take every opportunity that comes your way.

England bowled tidily on the third morning and had two wickets to show for their toil, though both came in rather fortuitous circumstances. First, Shamrah Brooks spooned a Jack Leach long hop straight to Chris Woakes at point before Ben Stokes dismissed Nkrumah Bonner lbw, courtesy of a questionable decision by the third umpire, Gregory Brathwaite.

They could so easily have had a third in Stokes’ next over. A ball shot low to pin Jermaine Blackwood on the pad, seemingly in front of the stumps. Umpire Nigel Duguid turned down a hearty appeal from England before Stokes, without really consulting his teammates, indicated that he thought that a review didn’t merit serious consideration.

TV replays soon confirmed that had England reviewed Duguid’s decision, it would have been overturned. England had all three reviews available to them at the time.

On talkSport’s radio commentary, Mark Nicholas outlined Stokes’ reluctance to review and subsequent bafflement at finding out that the ball would have cannoned into Blackwood’s stumps.

He said: “He [Stokes] doesn’t even bother to review it, he knows it in his heart it did too much.”

His co-commentator Darren Gough responded by saying that he thought there was a decent chance that Blackwood was out. He said: “I tell you what, that looked like it was clipping leg. That could easily have been given.”

When the replay was shown, Nicholas described Stokes’ response to the news that it would have been out had England reviewed. He said: “That was knocking leg stump out and if England had reviewed it they’d have got it. Ben Stokes is amazed, he’s looking to the dressing room and he’s saying, ‘Seriously?’”

Blackwood capatilised on the extra life afforded to him, scoring a battling half-century to allay any fears that his side would be asked to follow-on on a pitch that has seen dismissals hard to come by.

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