By Clayton Goodwin
England 416 (Ollie Pope 121, Ben Duckett 71, Ben Stokes 69): West Indies 351-5 (Kavem Hodge 120, Alick Athaneze 82)
Wonderful cricket. Wonderful weather. Wonderful cricket. What a difference a week makes. After his fine fielding and bowling the previous day Kavem Hodge scored a fighting and skilful hundred against high quality England bowling. In spite of not taking a wicket, Mark Wood gave the batsmen a particularly torrid time. Alick Athenaze, Hodge’s Dominican compatriot, showed talent and elegance in sharing a 175 runs fourth-wicket partnership. If it wasn’t Weekes and Worrell, Kanhai and Sobers, Richards and …. but maybe it was. The legends grow with the passing of the years. West Indies, finished at 351-5, were only 65 runs behind with 5 wickets in hand. Would it be churlish to rue the dropped catches of the previous day and muse on the position they might have been now?
Kraigg Brathwaite and Mikyle Louis started off the second day competently and confidently in tropical sunshine on a hard, slow wicket with few hidden mysteries. England bowling without Broad/Anderson for the first time – almost in living memory – managed without difficulty in reaching 53 in the first hour. Then Louis lifted spinner Shoaib Bashir high and fell to a steepling catch to Harry Brook. The West Indies captain seemed to be settled into making an impressive score but in the run-in to lunch he – caught by Pope at short-leg – and Kirk McKenzie – hitting straight to Ben Stokes were out to injudicious strokes. West Indies came in to the interval at 89-3. It was an improvement on the performance at Lord’s, certainly, but did not do justice to the batting potential in the pitch.
Alick Athenaze and Kavem Hodge, both of whom attained their half-century, batted throughout the afternoon session to extend their partnership to 128 runs. It was superb batting, and better than anything we have come to expect from West Indies for some time. It wasn’t Caribbean calypso cricket as we know it, it wasn’t cavalier cricket as anybody knows it, but it was excellent cricket. Historians bedazzled by Frank Worrell’s stroke-filed double-century in 1950 may overlook his battling 197 n.o. seven years later to save the match, and Basil Butcher grinding out 209 n.o. to turn a losing match into victory. Athenaze drove fluently through the off-side as Hodge, his Domincian compatriot, swept and pulled effectively backward of square. In the process, they faced, and withstood, hostile fast bowling by Mark Wood, who clattered Athenaze on the helmet, aided by Gus Atkinson.
Hodge swept on into the evening session. Firstly, it was in a 175 runs fourth-wicket partnership with Athenaze who was caught by Brook from Stokes when his century was in sight. Then Hodge, who batted superbly off the back foot, and Jason Holder withstood high pressure fast bowling as towards the close the ball, which was changed several times, began to swing. The luckless Mark Wood, in particular, came close to breaking through several times. Eventually Hodge was trapped l.b.w by Chris Woakes which brought Joshua da Silva to the wicket. He and Holder saw off the new ball to take West Indies in to an encouraging position.