Rollercoaster day of missed opportunities sums up Windies’ frustrating series

Sometimes, it’s the hope that truly kills you.

If you’re a West Indies fan, or a ‘neutral’ who is cheering for the Windies in this series because they’re the underdogs, then well, you’ll probably be able to relate to this phrase above.

After the humiliation at Lord’s, where West Indies simply did not show up at all, the rest of this series was expected to be a blowout; a formality that will help England gain World Test Championship (WTC) points and the ECB fill its coffers.

And then the second innings of the Trent Bridge Test happened. 

416 was supposed to have been ‘too much’ for this West Indian batting unit, yet they went to war with bat in hand and ended up taking a 41-run first innings lead to take the game to England. 

Then in the fourth innings, chasing 385, they shook England with their belligerent approach, racing to 61/0 in no time, batting like a team that firmly believed they could get the job done.

For a brief moment, they gave you hope. Hope that they would produce a miracle similar to the one they did at the Gabba six months back.

Gut wrenchingly enough, this ray of hope was followed by an excruciating collapse. The kind of collapse that would not have shocked anyone immediately after the Lord’s Test, but ended up being a dagger in the heart of many due to the hope the side had given prior to the capitulation.

On Day 1 of the third Test on July 26 (Friday), there were no collapses in the scale of the submission we witnessed on the fourth day at Trent Bridge.

Yet not for the first time in this series, this West Indian batting line-up ended up giving its fans and the very partisan ‘neutrals’ a ray of hope before inevitably breaking their hearts.

Winning the toss and batting first on a very good Edgbaston track, the visitors got off to the perfect start, with Kraigg Brathwaite and Mikyle Louis adding 76 for the first wicket in no time. 

On the day, the duo of Brathwaite and Louis became the first away opening pair in nine years to post a hat-trick of fifty-plus stands in England, and the first West Indian opening pair in 74 years to post three consecutive fifty-run stands in the country.

Toss? Check. New ball seen off? Check. Luck on their side? Check. Big opening stand? Check. Both openers looking good? Check.

This is when the hope started kicking in. That West Indies would be able to double down on the platform, win the day and put themselves in a position of strength by stumps. 

However, for the second time in as many batting innings, a good start from the visitors turned out to be the precursor for an agonizing collapse. 

76/1 became 93/2, which became 97/3, which in turn soon became 115/5. 

The dream start had been squandered. And West Indies’ innings was now in the territory where everyone expected them to fold under 175.

But in the words of Michael Corleone from The Godfather, just when you thought they were out, they pulled you back in. 

Joshua Da Silva and Jason Holder both love batting against England. Prior to today, nearly 30% of Da Silva’s Test runs had come against England. He averaged 60 against the Three Lions — his highest against any opponent — and also had registered his solitary Test ton against them. The wicketkeeper batter, notably, had posted an unbeaten 84 in the first innings of the Trent Bridge Test.

Holder, meanwhile, had scored two of his three Test tons against England, with his only double ton in Tests also coming against the Three Lions. Across the first two Tests, despite not going big, he’d gotten starts, crossing the 20-run mark thrice in four innings.

The two ‘England specialists’ got together at the right time for the visitors, when the ball started to get old and do a lot less, and they rebuilt the innings perfectly.

The pair survived a short ball barrage from Mark Wood and Gus Atkinson and were really smart about the way they went about their business. They picked and chose the deliveries to attack from the seamers, and took on Shoaib Bashir from ball one. The young off-spinner, who took a five-wicket haul in the second innings at Trent Bridge, got taken for 47 off his first nine overs, with Holder primarily being the aggressor. 

115/5 soon became 224/5 and, suddenly, there was hope again. Hope that the day could be salvaged. That West Indies could just end up getting close to 350 or maybe even 400 if these two batted out the day.

But, as is always the case, it’s the hope that kills. And so for the second time in the day, and for the third time in the series, what followed a couple of hours of encouragement was a harsh reality check.

From 225/5, the Windies collapsed to 282. It could, and should, have been so much more.

But in the end, it was England who walked away from the day as victors. 

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