Key events
6th over: West Indies 16-0 (Brathwaite 13, Louis 3) Atkinson lands a belligerent bouncer that causes Braithwaite some problems. Two balls later he pitches up and catches the opener stuck in his crease and prodding at it. He was lucky not to nick it. But the pressure is relieved with a bit of width that Brathwaite swats to fence at deep point. A quickly scampered single keeps him on strike for the next over.
5th over: West Indies 11-0 (Brathwaite 8, Louis 3) Solid against from the openers. Without any movement or pace they are in control against Woakes. A push towards the covers from the Windies skipper brings him a single.
Karl Gibbons is on my page:
“Hi everyone, I loved Sig Brown’s stats.
My, probably over-simplistic, view is that players are now “playing at” balls way more often and thus nicking and getting caught a lot more frequently?
Let’s hope Woakes skittles a few this morning to balance up the stats!”
Good points raised by Will here on why we’re seeing more caught dismissals.
I’d add that batters are defending with harder hands, and poking at balls that previous generations might have left alone. But your two points are spot on in my opinion.
.@danielgallan
Hi Daniel, didn’t know how to get in contact any other way. My 2, probably baseless, thoughts on more ‘caughts’ are:
1) less defensive cricket, therefore more slogs caught and fewer nicks and lbws
2) the advent of hawkeye meaning fewer dodgy LBW decisions.— Will Dawson Aquinas Politics (@Aquinaspolitics) July 19, 2024
4th over: West Indies 10-0 (Brathwaite 7, Louis 3) Solid from Louis who doesn’t seem all that bothered by Atkinson’s extra pace. Stokes is moving the field around. He toys with a gully for a while, then puts in a leg gully. There are six catchers in all. It might be a flat deck but the England captain is going to keep pressing.
3rd over: West Indies 10-0 (Brathwaite 7, Louis 3) Woakes is fuller to Louis who presses his large frame forward and bunts a single to the mid-off. Braithwaite nudges a couple off his pads into the vacant midwicket. It’s early days but Woakes already looks ineffective. That probably means he’ll get a hat-trick next over but a lack of pace and movement means it’s pretty comfortable for the openers.
New(ish) territory for Woakes:
Only the second time in his 50 caps that Chris Woakes has bowled the first over of the innings in a home Test and the first time with meaning.
The other occasion was in 2016 when Pakistan were chasing 40 to win. Anderson and Broad were in the team but did not bowl.
— Stephan Shemilt (@stephanshemilt) July 19, 2024
2nd over: West Indies 7-0 (Brathwaite 5, Louis 2) Atkinson gets the new ball for the first time in his Test career. He starts a ittle too close to the pads and is clipped for three singles into leg side. Good wheels early doors. It’s a flat deck so extra gas will help. Four slips for Gus and two men in the deep for the misplaced pull or hook.
1st over: West Indies 4-0 (Brathwaite 4, Louis 0) Woakes opens with a loosener down the leg side but finds his radar soon after. He’s got four slips but he’s angling the ball back into the right hander from a good length. One is over pitched and Braithwaite leans forward and drives through a gap between cover and point for four.
Right then, the players are making their way to the middle/ It’s Woakes with the new ball. Braithwaite is taking guard. Can the Windies get anywhere near England’s 416?
I can’t tell if Malcolm Brown is a man with too much time on his hands or is in fact my soulmate. As the football pundits with white soled trainers say, it’s probably a bit of both.
Here’s Malcolm’s wonderful stats work:
“Like most Scottish people in Italy, I expect, I’m avoiding the summer heat, which means either indulging in statistical nerdery or checking the cost of accommodation in Iceland to see if it’s gone down since last week. But it hasn’t, so … all ten batters in England’s first innings were out caught, which (according to Cricinfo) is the 90th time that has happened in a test match. The first 45 took until March 2001, so 1,540 test matches (one in every 34 when rounded off), while the second 45 took only 999 tests (one in 22), including 11 in the last 95 (one in 9). Apparently it’s becoming much more common – wonder why.”
If anyone is close enough to Simon Dennis please buy him a drink today.
That is because this hero has supplied me with the TMS link for overseas listeners (do let me know if it works).
“I drove to Lord’s last week (from Luxembourg) clutching tickets for days three and four in my sticky paw,” Simon says.
“It is an expensive trip; hotel, Eurotunnel, car charges, food etc. My friends and I saw 66 minutes of cricket, which I worked out to be about at 25 pounds a minute (even after the ticket refund). I need to find a cheaper sport to follow.”
Ah, Simon. Ten out of ten for effort. Hopefully Mother Cricket rewards you down the track.
Martin O’Donovan-Wright has been in touch and is asking an important question:
“Morning Daniel,
Even though the West Indies are occasionally competitive at home and manage rare great victories away, it’s clear they’re in serious decline, in large part because of the way global cricket is now organised. Do you think the one sided nature of these tests against a great and proud cricket (multi)nation is giving cricket administrators in the powerful test nations any pause for thought, or are they so enamoured with T20 etc that they are prepared to live with the demise of the red ball gold standard of the game?”
Unfortunately I don’t think the powerful care too much. Perhaps I’m being overly cynical, and there has been noise from Cricket Australia and the ECB that things need to change. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the amount of Test cricket India plays against the smaller nations.
But unless the so-called Big Three bring about radical change to the revenue sharing model we will continue to see underprepared and inexperienced teams struggle against the big boys.
I want to be more optimistic. Unfortunately I spend almost every morning of my life sticking my head out the window and shaking my fist at the clouds, bemoaning the state of the game.
Trent Bridge looks stunning this morning.
I must say, it’s my favourite pitch in England. Not stadium, not city, not crowd (though I have love for it all in Nottingham). I’m talking about the strip in the middle of the field. It’s always an absolute belter and reminds me most of my beloved Wanderers in Johannesburg.
What’s your favourite surface in the UK?
We got our first genuine sight of Bazball this summer as England reached 50 from just 26 balls.
That’s a record for any Test first innings. That opening salvo included 10 boundaries.
According to Simon Burnton at Trent Bridge, this was a fitting start to a Test that felt wedged into a city bustling with activity.
We’ve got our first bit of correspondence and it’s a doozy from Krisnha Moorthy:
“Good morning Daniel. A biblical question could be answered today. Is one Pope bigger than two Josephs. Let’s see.”
I need to wait for the caffeine to kick in before I tackle this one.
Ollie Pope said he was “lucky” during his knock of 121, and credited the presence of his mate Aaron Ramsdale for his good fortune.
The England goalkeeper watched on as Pope was dropped twice as he stroked 15 fours and biffed one six across 167 deliveries.
Preamble
It says a lot about the state of these two teams that England, having been put in to bat, raced to 416 all out at the close and still both captains will feel mildly pleased and annoyed in equal measure.
Given the way the West Indies batted at Lord’s this could end with another innings defeat. And yet it could have been a whole lot worse as several English batters chucked their wickets away or fell to soft dismissals.
Ollie Pope’s century was the highlight of the day and he proved that this is a deck with plenty of runs in it for those able to keep their head. Starts for Harry Brook (36), Ben Stokes (69), Jamie Smith (36) and Chris Woakes (37) could not be converted.
Some credit to the West Indies bowlers is due (even if they were let down by their fielders at times). Alzarri Joseph was the pick with a three-for with Kevin Sinclair – who has put his name down for best celebration in world cricket – bagging a couple. Kavem Hodge also got himself a pair which will encourage England’s young spinner, Shoaib Bashir, who didn’t get to bowl at Lord’s.
I’d love to be able to promise you a day of fierce resistance from the tourists, with just the right amount of one-legged pull shots and flailing drives through the covers. I fear we may have another troubled reply.
But you never know. Perhaps this is the day that the Windies turn up.
First ball at 11am BST. I’ll ping a couple of bits and bobs on the blog til then. Feel free to drop me a line and share any thought you have with the group. I’d love to hear from you.
