England v West Indies in 2024: Almanack

England v West Indies in 2024: Simon Wilde

Test matches (3): England 3 (36pts), West Indies 0 (0pts)

England had ended their winter tour of India chastened, and determined to improve. Head coach Brendon McCullum promised a refinement of approach, and it was evident in the way they went about a clean sweep against an enthusiastic but inexperienced West Indies. England’s batsmen hardly let up, scoring at 4.73 an over, almost identical to their rate during the 2023 Ashes. But they were more controlled and clinical, and suffered fewer bad sessions. Ben Stokes said his team were playing “smarter” cricket, while McCullum claimed they were “stronger now than we may have been in the past”.

The result meant England won the Richards–Botham Trophy, having lost in the Caribbean in early 2022, when it was first contested – a tour that led to Joe Root’s resignation as captain, and triggered the revolution wrought by McCullum and Stokes. It also stretched to 11 the number of series these sides had played since the visiting team last prevailed (England won 3-0 in the West Indies in 2003/04).

England’s desire to build for the future, specifically for Australia in 2025/26, was made plain before the series, when it was announced that the first Test at Lord’s would be James Anderson’s 188th and last. He made no secret of his wish to carry on, insisting he was bowling as well as ever – a view he had reinforced with a seven-for in his one Championship match for Lancashire. But England were adamant they wanted to get games into the legs and minds of a younger generation – and they were vindicated. Anderson remained in a coaching capacity, and was praised for his input.

The squad for the first two games was eye-catching for other omissions, too – Jonny Bairstow, Ollie Robinson, Ben Foakes and Jack Leach. Bairstow and Robinson had paid the price for poor tours of India, and were replaced by Harry Brook, who had missed the series for personal reasons, and the uncapped Surrey fast bowler Gus Atkinson. Meanwhile, the fact that Foakes and Leach were viewed as first choices at Surrey and Somerset did not spare them. England instead chose their county understudies: Jamie Smith as wicketkeeper (as well as aggressor with the bat) and Shoaib Bashir as spinner. Both proved a success: Smith scored important runs at Lord’s and Edgbaston, and kept impeccably; Bashir took 5-41, to bowl England to victory at Trent Bridge, where no male Test spinner had taken a five-for since Monty Panesar and Muttiah Muralidaran on the same day in 2006. Atkinson was the breakout star, capturing 12 wickets on debut, and 22 – at just 16 each – in the series. Not overly reliant on the new ball or extravagant swing, he displayed qualities that ought to work overseas.

No less exciting was the form of Mark Wood, who replaced Anderson in Nottingham, and bowled with such speed that it sent a frisson around the ground every time he took the ball. Though he did not get his full rewards in that game, he produced a sensational spell of reverse swing on the third day in Birmingham, taking five wickets in 21 deliveries after the ball was scuffed by a hit into the stands. No one needed convincing Wood was a threat on faster, bouncier surfaces abroad, but he now took his record in his last five Tests at home (where he had previously averaged 40) to 23 wickets at 20, which suggested a growing sophistication.

Given his own lopsided home-and-away record, Chris Woakes might have followed Anderson through the exit. But his value at No.8, his experience, and his reputation as a selfless citizen all earned him a place that he increasingly justified, contributing 134 runs and 11 wickets, some prised out on flat pitches with the old ball. McCullum called him “a remarkable cricketer”.

Perhaps most significantly, England found they could be dominant with the bat without being reckless. Fewer wickets were lost to overambition, and more effort put into the old virtue of rotating the strike rather than simply punctuating dot balls with boundaries. There was less obsession with clearing the rope: they hit only 13 sixes, with five for Smith, eager to confirm his credentials. Root benefited from the calmer mood, smoothly gathering 291 runs at 72 while striking at 65, a rate only slightly down on his previous tempo under Stokes. Ollie Pope and Brook scored a century each.

Trent Bridge, where England were pushed hardest, told the story best. They scored a similar number of runs from a similar number of balls as they had during the 2022 game there against New Zealand which properly launched their Bazball adventure, but hit 14 fewer sixes and 14 fewer fours. Despite winning by 241 runs, England needed the insurance of passing 400 in both innings – for the first time in their history – because the ground was living up to its reputation for fast scoring (Stokes said he would have preferred to set West Indies more than 385). There was also a crucial phase on the third evening, when West Indies were swinging it under lights. But Root and Brook adapted well, and survived until stumps, keeping the scoreboard ticking over without, in their captain’s words, “looking like it was dot, dot, dot, smash”. Stokes hailed it as a sign of progress.

There were still bursts of outrageous scoring. Ben Duckett got England off to a flyer on the first morning in Nottingham, hitting his first four balls from Jayden Seales for four, as 50 came up in a Test-record 4.2 overs. Ten days later, he and Stokes, promoting himself to open in place of Zak Crawley (who had broken a finger dropping a slip catch), equalled the record; Stokes’s 24-ball half-century was England’s fastest, as they chased 82 in 7.2 overs.

The captain’s ability to play as an all-rounder again following knee surgery contributed to England’s reset. His workload of 49 overs was his highest in a series since 2022, and he provided important support to the four frontline bowlers, notably at Trent Bridge, where West Indies batted into the 112th over. That was perhaps the one occasion when Stokes’s leadership fell down, too readily dropping the field deep to Joshua Da Silva during a chaotic last-wicket stand of 71 with Shamar Joseph.

With only two Test wins in England since 2000, West Indies always faced a stiff challenge, but they were not helped by inadequate preparation – a solitary warm-up fixture against a youthful County Select XI at Beckenham. It was useful that two of their seamers, Seales and Jason Holder, had been playing in the County Championship, but Kemar Roach’s early-season outings with Surrey cost him his place when he hurt his knee. Neither Alzarri Joseph, who went at more than six an over, nor Shamar Joseph had played red-ball cricket since the famous win at Brisbane in January, and some felt that Shamar would have benefited from being sent ahead to join the West Indies Academy in Ireland. In the event, he failed to reach top speed, and struggled with his fitness. To compound matters, Gudakesh Motie, the first-choice spinner, missed the second Test through illness.

The batting, understandably, lacked know-how: only the captain, Kraigg Brathwaite, and Holder had played Tests in England before. Questions were asked about selection, though whether Shai Hope and Tagenarine Chanderpaul would have strengthened the side was a moot point. Brathwaite had come into offering more solidity. But there were simply too many collapses: 10-87 at the start of the first Test, 10-82 to end the second after West Indies had competed well for three days, and 7-50 in the Third. Perhaps only Seales, who finished with 13 wickets, and the two Dominicans – Kavem Hodge and Alick Athanaze – who put on 175 in Nottingham, returned home with reputations enhanced.

West Indies touring party to England, 2024

*KC Brathwaite, AS Athanaze, JM Da Silva, KAR Hodge, JO Holder, TA Imlach, A Jordan, AS Joseph, S Joseph, JS Louis, M Louis, Z McCaskie, KSA McKenzie, G Motie, JNT Seales, K Sinclair. KAJ Roach was originally named, but sustained a knee injury, and was replaced by JS Louis, who later injured his hamstring; Jordan took his place. J Layne, I Thorne and NRJ Young accompanied the squad as development players.

Head coach: AN Coley. Batting coach: JC Adams. Bowling coach: SW Tait. Fielding coach: RL Griffith. Strength and conditioning coach: R Rogers. Physiotherapist: DFA Byam. Massage therapist: F Alleyne. Manager: RN Lewis. Analyst: A Seetaram. Media consultant: DB Wilson. Videographer: C Grierson.

First Test at Lord’s, July 10-12, 2024

Steven Lynch

England won by an innings and 114 runs. England 12pts. Toss: England. Test debuts: AAP Atkinson, JL Smith; M Louis.

This was a retirement pageant rebadged as a Test match, the build-up lasting two months from the May meeting in Manchester, where Rob Key, Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes told James Anderson they had decided to move on – after one last hurrah at Lord’s. It had been a remarkable 21-year career: this was his 188th Test, and came shortly before his 42nd birthday.

The brains trust had half an eye on the next Ashes, thinking it unlikely Anderson could still be leading the line in 2025/26. But he had warmed up with seven for 35 for Lancashire against Nottinghamshire, and bowled well enough at Lord’s, where his daughters Lola and Ruby – watched by his wife Daniella and his parents Michael and Catherine – gave the five-minute bell an emphatic clang. There was scarcely a dry eye in the house as he took the new ball, and Anderson admitted tears had never been far away all week: “I’ve been blaming it on hay fever.” England did him proud, with a thumping victory against undercooked opposition, though he could not engineer a dream finish: with West Indies nine down in their second innings, he shelled a straightforward return catch.

The hoopla kept the spotlight off two debutants from Surrey. The batting potential of Jamie Smith, who turned 24 during the match, meant he supplanted Ben Foakes behind the stumps, even though Foakes usually kept wicket ahead of him in the Championship. And Gus Atkinson stepped up with the promise of pace and bounce. At 26, he had enjoyed more success with white ball (88 career wickets, including four on his T20 debut for England in September 2023) than red (59).

Anderson was soon in action after Stokes opted to bowl on an overcast morning. Possibly nervous, he leaked nine from his first over, before settling down. The West Indian side contained only three with Test experience in England, but the tall Mikyle Louis, the first man from St Kitts to play a Test for West Indies (Joey Benjamin won a cap for England in 1994), looked solid, and helped Brathwaite put on 34.

Then Stokes shuffled the pack, and the cards started to fall England’s way. Brathwaite dragged Atkinson’s second ball into the stumps with an ugly shot, and McKenzie edged to second slip in his third over. Stokes himself embarked on a lively spell, showing a welcome return to full fitness after knee surgery – as well as the wisdom of skipping the recent T20 World Cup – and had Louis brilliantly caught one-handed by the diving Brook at third slip. The Dominican pair of Athanaze and Hodge survived until lunch and beyond, before a devastating triple-wicket maiden from Atkinson. In the next over, Pope held on to a blazing square-drive by Hodge off Woakes (his 150th Test wicket), and West Indies had lost four while marooned on 88.

Motie played sensibly, but Atkinson bagged a brace of Josephs – his sixth and seventh wickets – before Anderson finally got in on the act, trapping Seales. West Indies were blown away for 121, with Atkinson becoming the fifth to take a five-for on debut under Stokes’s captaincy. He looked as if he could hardly believe his figures of 7-45, keeping his head down and exuding diffidence. By tea, England had 30 for the loss of Duckett, who failed to make the most of being dropped by Louis at point.

The clouds darkened, and the lights came on, but the runs flowed. It was a surprise when Crawley, whose 76 contained 14 fours, was yorked by Seales, though England led by 68 at the close. Brook scampered to 50 next morning, before a steepling top edge off Alzarri Joseph to the keeper, and was soon followed by Stokes, bowled by one from the left-arm spinner Motie that snaked back out of the footmarks; he had now managed 13 runs in his last five Test innings. Root made batting look simple, before he too was gated by a sizzler from Motie. Now Smith showed why he had been chosen. He drove Motie and Holder elegantly to the boundary, then switched to T20 mode, powering Shamar Joseph into the Grand Stand, and Seales over the Tavern, a huge blow. Holder had inflicted a golden duck on Atkinson, returning the favour, but England made it to 371.

The tourists’ plans for a show of respect when Anderson came in to bat had been derailed by Louis, whose Exocet from deep point found Bashir well short of his ground at the bowler’s end as Smith pushed for two. The delighted Louis ran around, pumping his arms, and spotted his brother Jeremiah, a member of the squad, near the boundary. The whole team joined the celebrations, as Anderson quietly made his way to the middle. “We were going to give Jimmy a guard of honour,” said Seales. “But the run-out took us all the way down to Swiss Cottage!”

Trailing by 250, West Indies needed a sound start, but instead lost Brathwaite to an Anderson nip-backer, then the hapless McKenzie for a duck, trapped by Stokes – his 100th Test wicket in England, 200th in all Tests, and 300th in international cricket. A two-day finish looked possible when Louis and Hodge fell in successive overs, but Athanaze settled in, until edging low to Smith, whose fine catch gave Anderson 2-4 from 50 deliveries. Holder popped Atkinson to short leg from what became the day’s last ball, with West Indies floundering at 79-6.

It was all over in little more than an hour next morning, with Anderson taking his 704th and last Test wicket when Da Silva snicked a beauty. It left him four short of Shane Warne, with only Muttiah Muralidaran (800) ahead. The other three went to the tenacious Atkinson, who finished with 12-106, the fourth-best debut match figures in a Test; he was the first to collect two five-fors in his first Test for England since the Essex fast bowler Ken Farnes in 1934. It was hard for him to take it all in, and he even apologised to Anderson for claiming the last wicket. “Growing up, Jimmy was someone I’d come here to Lord’s to watch,” he said. “I was at mid-off looking over at him running in, and thinking: ‘I’ve seen this so many times on the TV.’ It was amazing.”

West Indies had been skittled for a sorry 136; until Motie opened his shoulders late on, their top score in the match was 27, despite most showing decent technique. But they lacked staying power, and had not been helped by having just one anaemic warm-up match, nor by the double failure of Brathwaite, an old-fashioned red-ball specialist who had played 90 Tests but not a single T20 game at any level. “The batters, including myself, have to come to the party and make West Indians proud,” he said, before the inevitable question about Anderson, who had dismissed him eight times in Tests: “He’s a legend of the game, but I won’t miss facing him at all.”

The Long Goodbye rolled on. While hundreds of spectators took advantage of MCC’s decision to allow access to the outfield, Anderson downed a pint of Guinness on the dressing-room balcony, and waded through assorted interviews, notably with Nasser Hussain for Sky TV, with team-mates looking on reverentially. There were various presentations, including a painting of his 700th Test wicket from the ECB, and honorary life membership of MCC. “I’m overwhelmed by the reaction from the crowd,” Anderson said. “And to contribute to a win, something I’ve tried to do throughout my career. This one has been different. Up and down. Seeing my girls ring the bell, walking out today with both teams lined up… it’s been incredible. An amazing 20 years.”

Was it really all over? Not quite. After the crowd had largely disappeared, a familiar action was spotted near the Pavilion: Anderson was beginning his new life as a bowling mentor – by looping down a few to Stokes’s children.

Player of the match: AAP Atkinson.
Attendance: 131,740.

Second Test at Trent Bridge, July 18-21, 2024

James Coyne

England won by 241 runs. England 12pts. Toss: West Indies.

It felt a little uncomfortable. In England’s first training session since James Anderson bowed out from international cricket, the most successful seam bowler in Test history was not lying on a beach in Mallorca with his family; nor was he bowling for Lancashire. Instead, in his new role as team mentor, he was lobbing balls at Brendon McCullum to assist slip-catching practice in the Nottingham drizzle. And he was doing it badly. Some throws dropped short or wide; those that did connect with McCullum’s bat hardly fizzed towards the fielders.

As for Stuart Broad, who had left the stage amid greater pomp and circumstance 12 months earlier, his former team-mates lined up 20 minutes before the start of the game to watch him cut a ribbon at the Pavilion End now renamed after him. He then headed off to the Sky commentary box.

But while Broad and Anderson remained within touching distance, the team moved on with impressive ease in the first home Test without either since Edgbaston 2012. They presumably enjoyed the sight of a high-class spinner to ease the seamers’ workload and threaten both edges, something that had eluded England since Graeme Swann’s retirement over a decade earlier. As Shoaib Bashir rushed them to victory on the fourth evening, he showed a level of skill unexpected of a 20-year-old who had endured the disadvantages faced by spinners in the English game. Released by the Surrey Academy at 17, he had failed to get into the Berkshire team at 18; before this series, he had been sent out on loan by Somerset. Now, he supplanted Anderson as the youngest England bowler to take a five-for in a home Test.

On the first morning, the absence through illness of his frontline spinner, Gudakesh Motie, plus the batting demolition at Lord’s, persuaded Brathwaite to bowl. After Crawley edged a pearler from Alzarri Joseph third ball, Seales struggled to readjust his length from Lord’s, and was picked off by Duckett, who hit the first four legitimate deliveries he faced on his home ground in Test cricket for four. (Duckett knew he might have to leave at any moment if his partner, Paige, went into labour, but the call came just after this Test.) England sprinted to the quickest team 50 in Test history, from 26 balls.

Brathwaite’s decision might still have paid off had West Indies not dropped Pope twice before he reached 55. Even by his standards, it was a streaky start, betraying a player who had been tinkering with his stance and trigger since the tour of India. And yet this sounded like nitpicking, as he brought up his sixth Test century, each against a different opponent. Had India or Australia been batting, they might have ploughed on until lunch on day two for 450 or so, but Stokes’s England were content with 416 all out in a day, the captain ending a barren run with 69.

The second morning was bathed in sunshine and, at the fastest-scoring ground in the country, the Dukes ball swung less for England than at any time since measurements began 18 years earlier. If West Indies couldn’t do it now, perhaps they never could. To the relief of almost everyone, they knuckled down. There was a stumble before lunch, when Atkinson bounced out Brathwaite, and Bashir removed McKenzie, chipping horribly to mid-on. But salvation came from a pair of Dominicans.

Hodge likened the left-handed Athanaze’s approach to a “sledgehammer”, but that did a disservice to the way he threaded the off side with his cover-drives. With Hodge hanging back in his crease, they were a decent foil, holding England at bay with 175 for the fourth wicket. A tireless netter, Hodge had been knocked back “six or seven times” from national trials, before – past 30 – earning selection for the tour of Australia, when others had withdrawn to take up franchise offers.

Root had known him since they enlisted together at the Darren Lehmann Academy in Adelaide in 2010/11, so he could almost be forgiven for giving him a helping hand, putting down a routine slip catch off Wood when Hodge had 16. This followed another piece of charity; the former Australian opener David Warner had given Hodge the bat with which he now struck a Test century, only the second by a Dominican, after Irvine Shillingford in 1976/77.

The West Indians were surviving by the skin of their teeth against Wood, whose first over for four weeks averaged an eye-watering 94mph. There was so much ducking and hooking that Hodge had enough material to update his degree in kinesiology – the study of human movement. Any criticism levelled at the selection of Wood and Woakes, two bowlers in their mid-thirties, fell silent, as the suspicion dawned that no Englishman had ever bowled as fast across a spell. Woakes also hit his own, steadier, stride.

West Indies still opened a lead of 41, as England resorted too hastily to a short-pitched attack when Shamar Joseph joined Da Silva. Their last-wicket stand of 71 featured a hooked six from Joseph which dislodged tiles from the roof of the Larwood & Voce pub, and West Indies reached 450 for the first time in ten years (Australia had done so on 34 occasions, and England 22).

Crawley was run out via Seales’s fingertips at the non-striker’s end, but England’s second innings brimmed with confidence. It was perhaps the batting unit’s best collective judgment of conditions and match situation in the Bazball era: humming along at 4.6 an over while rarely straying into recklessness. Duckett played freely enough to keep his strike-rate as a Test opener (86) above even Virender Sehwag, while Stokes later reflected that the assurance shown by Root and Brook under lights on the third evening, after a ball change had contributed to the wickets of Pope and Duckett, moved the game categorically in England’s favour.

Root was back to his best, not playing his reverse scoop until he had brought up his 32nd Test hundred – within two of Brian Lara, who on the first day had attracted a queue of admirers the length of the Radcliffe Road Stand for a book signing. Having passed Mahela Jayawardene’s Test tally of 11,814 in the first innings, Root now ticked off Shivnarine Chanderpaul’s 11,867. Lara, seventh on the all-time list, was next in his sights. Root also equalled the record for most Test hundreds at Trent Bridge: five, shared by Denis Compton and Mike Atherton. Brook’s first at home, meanwhile, was nearly without blemish – leaving him with a Test average of 62, second only to Bradman among those to have played 20 innings. By the time the Yorkshire pair were split after a stand of 189 in 41 overs, England were almost out of reach.

No one would have given West Indies a prayer of chasing 385 were it not so difficult to protect the boundaries at Trent Bridge. And when Brathwaite and Louis guided the tourists to 61 at drinks on the fourth evening – the first time West Indian openers had put on fifty stands in both innings in England since The Oval in 1991 – hopes were raised for a fifth-day humdinger to rival Jonny Bairstow’s great day out against New Zealand in 2022.

Then came cold reality: at 4.38, Louis jabbed at the first ball back, from Woakes, and all ten wickets tumbled in an hour and 50 minutes, leaving Nottinghamshire to email the thousands who had just applied for free tickets on the last day. The chief wrecker was Bashir, who with so many runs to defend, and enjoying gentle turn from the Radcliffe Road End, demonstrated an array of speeds and grips. The ball to Athanaze was the off-spinner’s classic to the left-hander, dipping and turning to take the edge. But it was possibly surpassed by the quicker one out of the front of the hand that castled Holder on the forward defensive. To have picked Bashir for India after just ten (expensive) first-class wickets had taken courage, and it was hard to begrudge Stokes a good-natured gloat: “I don’t want it to sound like it’s an ‘I told you so’ sort of thing. But it sort of is…”

And yet none of the England bowlers could have achieved what they did without Wood causing so much bother at the other end. He passed 97mph, and beat the bat 40 times, for the reward of just two wickets. The second, Sinclair, was fending one off his face as he popped a catch to slip; he was brave enough to attempt to carry on, calling for a review with a forearm that turned out to be fractured, only to discover the ball had hit the wristband of his glove. It was a neat summation of West Indies’ position in this series: unbowed but outgunned.

Player of the match: OJD Pope.
Attendance: 59,412.

Third Test at Edgbaston, July 26-28, 2024

Kit Harris

England won by 10 wickets. England 12pts. Toss: West Indies.

“These guys play on slow and low pitches at home. They’re not used to this level of pace and bounce.” Those words could have been spoken by any England coach visiting the Caribbean in the 1980s or 1990s – but they came from West Indies’ Andre Coley, after England had blown his side away on a hot summer Sunday. This time it was Ben Stokes playing the role of Viv Richards – swordsmanship, swagger and all – and Mark Wood cast as Malcolm Marshall, or Curtly Ambrose, or any one of a dozen speed merchants. Capacity crowds turned out at Edgbaston to relish this reversal of roles, but they had to wait. They even had to endure a fleeting period of West Indian ascendancy.

On a fair Friday morning, West Indies brought back Motie in place of Kevin Sinclair, whose forearm Wood had broken at Nottingham; England, resisting the temptation to recall Matthew Potts or hand a debut to Dillon Pennington, were unchanged, perhaps wishing to put their fast bowlers through the challenge of back-to-back Tests without reducing their pace. In this, they were well satisfied. Atkinson was threatening most of the time, and Wood may never have bowled better than his spell of 90mph reverse swing that brought a 3-0 win. Since 1978, England had enjoyed seven whitewashes in series of three or more games, and three had come under Stokes.

The pitch was benign and biscuit-coloured but, on losing the toss, Stokes was happy to unleash his bowlers again. Wood repeatedly beat the openers for pace, bowling at the body as much as the wicket; Brathwaite, trying to duck a bouncer, left his bat up and accidentally ramped a four. In an eventful first hour, it was hard to say which was the more praiseworthy: West Indies emerging unscathed, or England’s seamers bowling 15 overs.

The opening stand had reached 76 when Atkinson tempted Louis to nibble outside off. His agonised reaction said it all: the can was now open. Wood hit Brathwaite in the box with a quick one; it was a full two minutes before he could stand again. Every big-screen replay was met with a pained but gleeful “Ooh!” from 25,000 voices.

Either side of lunch, West Indies collapsed. McKenzie hinted at class, punching three
fours in one Atkinson over, but lost his middle stump to a Wood inswinger moments later.
Athanaze lazily dragged the last ball before the interval on to his wicket, and Wood’s
aggression paid off when Brathwaite gloved carelessly down the leg side. The delivery
was filth, but fast, and it rattled the batsman; replays showed the glove was off the bat but,
by then, Brathwaite had walked. Hodge left on length – the wrong length – and Woakes
hit two-thirds up off stump.

Holder and Da Silva came together at 115-5, and frustrated England. They tired of bowling in the channel to a well-populated cordon, and switched the script. Atkinson and Wood bowled leg-theory with six men waiting for the hook, including Crawley at long stop. Bashir tossed it up with a scattered field, and was carted: his five overs before tea cost 35. It was a curious approach, and smacked of impatience. England seemed set on taking a wicket from a mis-hit, or not at all. A seventh fielder was sent to the leg trap, and the configuration changed almost every delivery, but still the batters threaded the ball through.

The carousers in the Hollies Stand grew bored. Beach balls bounced about. A dozen butchers chased a man-sized chicken along the aisles. A new song was devised (“You will never see Zak Crawley down a mine”). Holder brought up his half-century and the hundred partnership, in 30 overs.

Convention was restored with the return of Woakes. Back came the slips, and the wickets: Da Silva chased an outswinger, Alzarri Joseph picked out mid-off. Atkinson burst through Holder and bounced out Motie, with Root diving behind the wicketkeeper to hold a superb catch. Bashir was recalled, and removed Shamar Joseph, denying Atkinson the chance of another five-for.

The pre-match talk had been about England needing a proper challenge – and, facing a moderate total on a placid surface, they presented themselves with one. Paying scant respect to the close of play, still less to the bowling, they were three down before stumps. Crawley smashed three fours in an over from Seales, but edged to second slip going for a fourth. Next ball, Alzarri Joseph, having dropped a reflex, left-handed return off Duckett, got him to chop on playing an expansive, leaden-footed drive. Holder then held a fine low catch to inflict a duck on Wood, the nightwatchman. Still, it woke the Hollies up. Pope got going with a beautiful drive for four, met with drunken, mistaken cries of “Rooot!”

In the morning, it was Root England needed most. They began as though they were 200 ahead, the ball was not swinging, and the bowlers were trundlers. Pope went the same way as Duckett; Brook drove loosely at Seales. Had Brathwaite reviewed an lbw shout when Root had three, Seales would have had him too. Instead, Root purred into action. He overtook Brian Lara’s 11,953 Test runs, reached a half-century, then 12,000 – the seventh to get there. Stokes had asserted himself against Holder and Motie before lunch, and brought up the hundred stand in less than 20 overs.

West Indies also resorted to the short-ball plan, and were swiftly rewarded when Stokes, just past 50, hooked Alzarri Joseph’s sucker ball straight to forward square leg. Root kept finding the gaps until, on 87, he propped forward to Motie, and missed. His runs were enough to take him top of the Test rankings, and his average back over 50, but his dismissal might have cost England a lead – were it not for Smith.

He and Woakes guided them ahead, then accelerated: 17 came in one over from Alzarri Joseph, who conceded 100 in an innings for the third Test in a row. The century stand arrived even faster than for Root and Stokes, and was England’s first for the eighth wicket at Edgbaston. Just when it looked as if Smith’s relentless positivity might be rewarded with a hundred, he was castled by a half-tracker from Shamar Joseph that never rose above bail height. Woakes reached his first Test fifty since 2021, and the last-wicket pair presented the rare phenomenon of a No. 10 turning down the No. 11’s singles – Bashir evidently being considered England’s biggest bunny since Monty Panesar. This stratagem yielded 13 runs, Atkinson clonking two sixes before picking out deep mid-wicket.

England’s lead was 94, and West Indies were lucky to lose just two by the close. Woakes sneaked one past Brathwaite in the first over, and Atkinson coaxed a nick from McKenzie; in between, Louis was missed by Stokes at mid-off. Wood fired down a yorker so lethal it knocked Louis’s bat from his hand, and Bashir kept short leg interested. West Indies were not expected to put up much of a fight on the Sunday.

Nor did they – and yet it was the most exciting day of the game. There was now substantial turn from the Birmingham End. After Athanaze missed a sweep, Hodge snicked his first ball from Bashir between keeper and slip. But he seemed at ease with the pace of Wood: dug in or pitched up, he met it just the same. His strokeplay seemed to embolden Louis, who reached his maiden Test fifty with a fearless heave for six off Bashir, and soon added another. That first blow, Stokes said later, signed West Indies’ death warrant: the ball hit concrete, scuffing the rougher side. Reverse swing suddenly came into play. Stokes persuaded Louis to chase one, then had Holder edging to second slip, who dropped it. The error did not cost any runs – Atkinson promptly removed Holder – but it did cost Crawley, who left the field with a fractured finger. At lunch, West Indies were five down, 57 ahead.

Two magnificent performances wrapped the match up before tea. The first came from Wood, who put on another sustained display of hostility from the Pavilion End, reversing the ball fast and late. Da Silva was so plumb he walked. Wood then found Alzarri Joseph’s middle stump, Hodge’s edge, Seales’s off stump, and Shamar Joseph’s edge: in 55 minutes, his figures were 6-0-9-5.

England needed 82. Crawley had gone for a scan, so Stokes – who did not want others out of position – moved up to open. He delivered a spectacular onslaught. His first 17 balls brought nine fours, lashed on the up through cover, pulled with the strength of a carthorse, or launched back over the bowler. He seemed almost superhuman: in the midst of the bombardment, he was struck hard in the box by Alzarri Joseph; unlike Brathwaite, he was on his feet again in five seconds. The crowd started cheering Duckett’s singles because they brought Stokes back on strike.

When he toe-ended one to reach 42 off 19, he threw his head back in frustration, though he later said he was unaware of Misbah-ul-Haq’s 21-ball record for the fastest Test fifty. He still set an English record of 24 – overtaking Ian Botham – and finished the match with a hooked six off Brathwaite. No team had raced to a target this big, this quickly. But then, no other team had Stokes.

Player of the match: MA Wood.
Attendance: 87,248.
Players of the series: England – AAP Atkinson; West Indies – JNT Seales.

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