The clock has just ticked past midday, and England have gone plenty of the way to correcting their struggles on the second day.
Two wickets came in the first hour, and two more followed in two balls in the first over of the second. The ball is moving laterally more significantly than it has all Test match. Shamar Joseph blocks out the hat-trick ball after advancing unsurely down the wicket. And then, slowly at first and then very quickly, the game changes.
First, there’s stalemate. The field spreads and contracts each over, in time-honoured fashion. Joshua Da Silva farms the strike but doesn’t do much more. Then the first shot is fired, Da Silva carting Mark Wood for six.
Joseph has faced just three balls but has had some time in the middle for his heart rate to settle and to assess conditions, and in the next over he goes, lumping Woakes over mid-off. Now the runs are flowing. England go short, and Joseph twice pulls Atkinson for six, taking a piece of Trent Bridge terracotta with him. Spin comes on, and Da Silva carts Joe Root’s off-breaks for 18 runs in four balls. Wood is reintroduced and finally breaks through, but West Indies have added 71 for the final wicket. A small deficit has been turned into a significant lead.
West Indies have taken a 41-run lead in the Trent Bridge Test after the last-wicket pair of Joshua Da Silva and Shamar Joseph added 71.
— Wisden (@WisdenCricket) July 20, 2024
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Occasionally, of course, a No.11 with licence will have a swing and get a few away. It can happen to any team. But the numbers bear out that this has been a consistent problem for a series of England captains. Going back to the start of Alastair Cook’s tenure, England have the second worst record, behind Afghanistan, of any Test team against the last wicket, conceding an average tenth wicket partnership of 16.30. They have given up 15 stands of fifty or more for the last wicket, five more than any other team. And while there had been some signs of improvement under Stokes, this year has seen the last-wicket average against England rise to 18.90.
For many, England’s method was puzzling, but familiarly so. Under Brendon McCullum, England have made a point of challenging Test orthodoxy, but not yet the one that means you have to stop trying to get out the batter at the other end as soon as the No.11 walks in. Da Silva is a talented, resourceful player, and many of this England team will have not-so-fond memories of his series-sealing hundred in the last series of the pre-McCullum era. But he’s also a lower order batter with a Test average of 25. Might he nick one to slip if you plug away outside off? And what might be the psychological effect of putting everyone back on the boundary and saying, ‘for the next four balls, you can rest easy’?
Stuart Broad, on Sky commentary having not long ago left the England dressing room, offered an insight into Stokes’ tactics. He acknowledged that they could have kept bowling as they had done successfully up to that point, but didn’t see much wrong with how they went about it.
“It’s incredibly frustrating,” he said. “Particularly, in the morning we saw it seam around and move around, so part of you is thinking, ‘Should I just continue bowling length?’ But then you end up bowling four or five balls at the ‘in’ batter and then one ball at the No.11. And then if that doesn’t go right then it drags on again and you’re getting tired. I think England could have potentially decided to go full short-ball theory with the full field in, but then Shamar Joseph hits one onto the roof of the Larwood & Voce pub and then top-edges one for four.”
Is there a way to consistently mitigate the damage? Not for Broad, unless you have one of the game’s great spinners in your ranks.
“I can’t think I have [seen a captain consistently get it right] unless maybe they have a leg-spinner. Yes, genuine pace helps, but when the rhythm is that the ‘in’ batter is keeping strike, your quickest bowler is bowling at a batter who is on 50 or 60 and in and is used to facing that sort of pace. You really want to expose the No.11. So maybe Shane Warne, Muralidaran would break open those sorts of partnerships. I don’t think I’ve seen anything really successfully work, apart from maybe Australia with the short-ball theory on the big grounds.”
England don’t have a spinner of the calibre of Warne or Muralidaran, and Trent Bridge is one of the world’s smallest Test grounds. Something different might be needed. It’s not clear England know what that is.
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