REPORT: West Indies followed Kraigg Brathwaite in the wrong way until……
West Indies followed Kraigg Brathwaite in the wrong way until Holder steadied the ship.
West Indies followed Kraigg Brathwaite in the wrong way until Holder steadied the ship.
Too frequently this series, the captain’s wicket has resulted in a flurry of dismissals, but his predecessor dug in to prevent a collapse.
Chris Woakes bowls the first ball of the Test, to Kraigg Brathwaite. It was a little short, so the West Indies captain dabbed it into the ground and ran. It felt a little bold, if only for a moment; by the time Woakes lengthened and altered his follow-through to reach the ball, both he and the hitters knew the gamble had been worthwhile. Was this a sign that the West Indies had taken the initiative after winning the toss and were ready to dominate the game?
Mikyle Louis, Brathwaite’s opening partner, pushed his bat unconvincingly at the first ball he faced, leaving the last four balls of Woakes’ innings well alone, and took 22 balls to get off the mark. Perhaps not.
There have been times in this series when Brathwaite appeared to be pulling the team behind him rather than leading it, and the first hour of this game was one of them. Louis was finally dismissed for 26, and his maiden Test series has been incredibly consistent: no scores below 14 and none above 27, but this was one of his less remarkable near-identical innings.
Nonetheless, the opening partnership of 76 was the greatest of the series thus far for either side, and the captain’s half-century was his first in a year, having fallen two and then three runs short at Trent Bridge the previous week.
Test captaincy can be a lonely profession, especially if you are at the head of a struggling batting lineup. In their first innings in Nottingham, West Indies created two superb middle- or lower-order partnerships that propelled the team to a competitive total and given a glimmer of hope, a sliver of belief, that all is not lost when the first wickets go. But, even then and now, one habit could not be broken: when Brathwaite falls, others follow.
Between the 31-year-old’s dismissal and the next wicket to fall in the team’s five innings this series, the runs scored have been two, five, six, one, and none. His departure causes more departures; on a good day, his wicket is equivalent to two wickets; on a terrible day, it causes a complete collapse.
If they averted that fate here, it was thanks to a second captain’s innings.
Jason Holder was eased out of that post after five years at the end of 2020, and he appears to have loved the freedom that his suddenly unburdened existence has provided: in the previous year, he opted out of both a central contract and an Australian Test trip. What he hadn’t done was contribute consistently with the bat; this would be only his third half-century in three years.
“I haven’t really been too worried,” he remarked of his form. “I feel like I’ve been getting started. Starts haven’t been an issue; it’s just been going on. So it was only a matter of digging deeper. In terms of Test cricket, it’s been a very erratic road for me over the last year and a half, and I’m just taking it as it comes. I’m not really motivated by milestones right now. For me, it is more about driving the group’s culture to improve. I believe we simply need to keep moving upward, and that is my primary focus right now.”
At 115 for four, the West Indies found themselves in a terrible and familiar situation. Holder had faced one delivery and scored no runs by that point, but he started about rebuilding the innings with Joshua Da Silva. For a while, it was difficult: he needed 11 balls to score his first run, then 18 to score his third. Da Silva, who, despite a disappointing performance at Lord’s, has been one of his team’s most productive and impressive batters in this series, recovered quickly.
Then England came in Shoaib Bashir, and Holder altered gears. He lifted the spinner over mid-on for four and then down the ground for six; he pulled Mark Wood well, anticipating the short ball and smashing it through a vacant midwicket. But, soon after reaching his half-century, he lost his batting partner, then his rhythm – between the 61st and the end of the 68th over, he faced seven of 44 balls and watched Da Silva nick a catch through to Jamie Smith off Woakes – and finally his wicket, as Gus Atkinson found some away swing and uprooted his off stump for 59.
In the first two games of this series, the West Indies produced one innings of more over 400 runs, which could win a Test match, and three that added up to exactly 400 runs, which almost always results in a loss. This time, their present and former captains worked together to provide them something roughly defendable, as well as reassuring Brathwaite that there is character and quality beyond him.
They just need to do it again. “Look, tomorrow brings another challenge and I’m really looking forward to that,” Holder said the crowd. “And I’m sure each individual in the dressing room is as well.”
