England Tour of West Indies 2022 - T20 & Tests

WI V ENG 1st Test Antigua Day 4
ENG 311 Bairstow 140 Seales 4-79
WI 375 (157.3 overs) Bonner 123 Brathwaite 55 Holder 45 Stokes 2-42 Leach 2-79 Overton 2-85
ENG 2nd Innings 72-1 24 overs) Crawley 45 no Root 20 no

So West Indies bat through the entire day (90.1 overs) for 171 runs. That's slowed the match down greatly and a draw is now the favourite.

WI v ENG 1st Test North Sound Antigua Day 5 Tea
ENG 311 & 349-6 dec (88.2 overs) Crawley 121 Root 109 Lawrence 37 Roach 2-53 Joseph 3-78
WI 375 & 56-3 (33 overs) Brathwaite 33 Campbell 22 Leach 2-29
Target 286 (min 71 overs)

Clear where this first match is headed!! I believe many thought tht this pitch would break up much more, in fact it hasn't changed much at all - save for the odd one keeping particularly low! I wonder if the answer to creating contest tracks is to under prepare them??

WE v ENG 1st Test North Sound Antigua day 5
ENG 311 & 349
WI 356 & 147-4 (70.1 overs) Bonner 38 no Holder 37 no Brathwaite 33 Leach 3-57
Match Drawn

First innings runs again hurt England. If they could’ve put 450+ first innings it might’ve been different. Mind you unless it was a green top in overcast England we know Woakes won’t get wickets!! Plus Overton as an international opening bowler is very optimistic! 40 overs for stokes including many after you could see a visible limp … Root either hates him or is a shit captain!

Positives Crawley, let’s see if he can stick 10 onto his average, looks to have the ability.

Leach, kept it tight and picked up some wickets.

(12-03-2022 22:31 )Whynot Wrote:  40 overs for stokes including many after you could see a visible limp … Root either hates him or is a shit captain!

Well Wood couldn't bowl at all and Woakes and Overton were both ineffective, so perhaps Root felt he didn't have many options.

(12-03-2022 22:31 )Whynot Wrote:  First innings runs again hurt England. If they could’ve put 450+ first innings it might’ve been different. Mind you unless it was a green top in overcast England we know Woakes won’t get wickets!! Plus Overton as an international opening bowler is very optimistic! 40 overs for stokes including many after you could see a visible limp … Root either hates him or is a shit captain!

Positives Crawley, let’s see if he can stick 10 onto his average, looks to have the ability.

Leach, kept it tight and picked up some wickets.

The fact that West Indies got the ball to swing twice as much as England was the difference in the first innings. England did well to make 300, most of our bowlers rely on seam movement.

Root loves Stokes, he is just a shit captain. Stokes is always willing, regardless of his fitness, Root must be stronger, but apart from the accuracy of Leach, all our other bowlers were ineffective. Lawrence should've bowled more.
terrible captaincy to bowl Stokes when a positive result was unlikely. Taking overs out of Stokes that could be needed if we ever get a more genuine chance of a win later in the series. Only 3 days rest, & we could be asked to bowl on the first day.

Root must be clinging on to the slightest chance of a win in the hope of saving his captaincy future, surely once th new management team is in place, he will be back in the ranks.

With Wood a doubt, surely Mahmood's long awaited debut will happen. Overton was ignored for all 5 Ashes Tests so must be way down the pecking order.
The fast bowling stocks are limited. Fisher was a promising teenager, but has struggled for fitness, yet the minute he strung a few matches together he's fast-tracked into the squad. He had genuine pace, high 80's, but looks medium fast now.
I'd still play these 2 ahead of what we got in this match, & if the surface requires, get Parkinson in. Literally nothing to lose.
I never saw the point in Woakes been given the chance to secure his place as our new ball bowler, when he's not much younger than Broad.
So much rests on whether Archer can regain fitness & become our Test Match spearhead, if he will be lost to white-ball cricket.
Much of Crawley's innings contained wonderful shots mixed with him playing at balls that he should be letting go. He's adopted the flawed Pope theory of batting on off-stump, which is counter-productive, & allows a bowler to be less accurate, doesn't stop the nick-off, & brings in lbw & bowled. He will continue to fail more often that not with this technique. He isn't geared up to be an opener, the opposite of what we had, plays too many shots. I'm a fan & I hope he can find the right balance between attack & fence.

(13-03-2022 01:34 )aaron Wrote:  

(12-03-2022 22:31 )Whynot Wrote:  40 overs for stokes including many after you could see a visible limp … Root either hates him or is a shit captain!

Well Wood couldn't bowl at all and Woakes and Overton were both ineffective, so perhaps Root felt he didn't have many options.

It took Root 156 overs of the West Indies first innings to bowl Lawrence. Lawrence isn’t a world beater but he’s handy enough. Root and Lawrence combined should have bowled more. Plus bowling Stokes so late on day 5 when the game was clearly going to be a draw and he was limping was negligent!

WI v ENG 2nd Test Bridgetown Barbados Day 1 Close
England won the toss & elected to bat
ENG 244-3 (89.5 overs) Root 119 no Lawrence 91 Lees 30