Encouraging signs for England batting as West Indies suffer on unforgiving surface
Andrew Miller16-Mar-2022England 244 for 3 (Root 119*, Lawrence 91) vs West IndiesTwo Tests into the red-ball reset. Two Test centuries for the one man in England’s ranks who really didn’t require the Ctl-Alt-Del treatment. By the time the shadows had begun to creep at a rowdy Kensington Oval – a venue more packed with England fans than his own stomping ground of Headingley may end up being this summer – Joe Root had marched imperiously along to his 25th Test hundred, and his eighth in 19 Tests since the start of 2021.An anomalous Ashes campaign stands squarely in the way of Root’s otherwise normal service, but if the pressure of hoisting this Test team onto his shoulders had caused those knees to buckle in Australia, then Root has reaffirmed his desire to lead England’s rebuild in no uncertain terms.In six hours of ever-mounting authority, Root reaped what he himself had sown – in partnership with, first, the doughty Alex Lees, then the more free-spirited Dan Lawrence – as a morning session of 47 grimly-conceded runs gave way to returns of 89 in the afternoon and 108 in the evening, during which Lawrence’s 91 from 150 balls, the highest score of his young career, reinforced the can-do attitude that he had displayed in his declaration slog in Antigua last week.Related
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Alas for Lawrence, his innings would end in agonising anti-climax, from what would have been the penultimate ball of the day. He had reined himself in for much of the final hour, surviving in the process a spill at slip off the persevering Jayden Seales on 72. But then, with his blood pumping after racing into the 90s with back-to-back boundaries, Jason Holder lured him on the drive once more, and Lawrence stalked off cursing himself after picking out extra cover. Like Zak Crawley in the first Test, he may reflect that opportunities for Test centuries don’t come much better than this, least of all when you are privileged enough to share in a 164-run partnership with an acknowledged modern master of the game.For there aren’t many measures left by which to assess the zone that Root has entered into in the past 14 months. By the time he left the field with 119 from 246 balls to his name, Root had racked up 2018 runs since the start of 2021. England play more Tests than most opponents of course – and that can be a curse as much as a blessing when it comes to managing burn-out – but of his contemporaries, only Rishabh Pant (1077) and Dimuth Karunaratne (1068) have even crossed even the 1000-mark.Just as Root had begun his 2021 annus mirablis with scores of 228, 186 and 218 against Sri Lanka and India, and the sense that nothing and no-one could dislodge him, so he finished this first day as if in a force-field. West Indies delayed their new ball until the 85th over as Seales in particular began to locate some reverse-swing, but Root’s footwork was imperturbable as he sashayed himself into line, and set his stall for Thursday’s resumption.And yet, it hadn’t been quite such plain-sailing for Root in a choppy opening gambit, and after being offered nothing from another dog of a deck, West Indies were left to rue two priceless opportunities either side of lunch that could potentially have cracked open the rest of England’s still unproven batting.Joe Root and Dan Lawrence upped the tempo•Getty ImagesRoot’s first big let-off came on 23, in the second hour of the morning, when Jason Holder wriggled a length delivery through to the keeper via a tangle of bat and pad. West Indies, perhaps chastened by the misuse of an early review, chose not to send it upstairs, and sure enough, replays showed that Root had indeed got a thin inside-edge as the ball went by.Root’s big reprieve, however, came on 34 in the fourth over after lunch, when he deflected a leg-sided delivery from Kemar Roach straight off the face of his bat, only for Joshua da Silva to spill a low but catchable chance, diving to his left. Roach dropped to his haunches in despair, perhaps recognising how fleeting such opportunities would be on this unforgiving deck. Sure enough, Root barely offered another glimmer as he brought up a 125-ball fifty five balls after the drinks break with a punched single into the covers.After winning the toss, Root had had little hesitation in batting first, even though there was a hint of early assistance for West Indies’ seamers, not dissimilar to that which England had encountered in crumbling to 48 for 4 on the first morning of the first Test. At 4 for 1 in the fourth over, with Zak Crawley caught in two minds by a good seaming delivery from Seales, there was just the slightest threat of a repeat performance.Lees, however, settled quickly into his day’s work as the threat of the new ball dissipated, with another innings of self-denial that would be familiar to anyone who tuned into his warm-up maiden fifty at Coolidge last month. West Indies were perhaps guilty of bowling too few deliveries that were targeting his stumps after his consecutive lbws in Antigua, but Lees left the ball well with his minimalist footwork, and picked off his runs with uncomplicated resolve – his three boundaries, in fact, came via a clip, a cut and a push down the ground, a hat-trick of strokes that served Alastair Cook perfectly well in his under-stated career.But just when Lees seemed to have done the hard part, he was nailed plumb in front of middle for 30 as Veerasammy Permaul cramped him from over the wicket to break his drought after a wicketless second innings in Antigua.However Lees’ departure, at 80 for 2, singled a marked change-up in tempo, as Lawrence romped out of the blocks with a desire to bring the action. He came close to running himself out for 11 as he took off for a tight single to mid-on, moments after battering Holder for back-to-back fours, Holder’s first such indignity of the series (but not, as it would turn out, his last). But he was far from chastised when, three overs later, he skipped down the track to Permaul to launch England’s first six of the innings, to confirm the intent with which the remainder of a gutsy innings would be compiled.Until the relative fireworks of the evening session, England’s most dramatic developments arguably took place off the field, with the news that Yorkshire’s Matt Fisher had been drafted in for a last-minute debut, after Craig Overton had fallen ill overnight.With Saqib Mahmood already inked in for his own debut, England are fielding two debutant fast bowlers for the first time since the Lord’s Test of 2009, also against West Indies, when Graham Onions and Tim Bresnan made their bow. On this early evidence, the new pair will not be expecting quite the same assistance from the conditions that their forebears enjoyed.