England bowlers took 19 wickets to send West Indies tumbling to a humiliating defeat by an innings and 209 runs in the first test last week. England won with time to spare on Day 3 of the day-night test at Edgbaston, taking a 1-0 lead in the three-match contest.
The loss was the sixth heaviest ever for the West Indies in its once-proud test history. West Indies, resuming on 44-1, was all out for 168 in its first innings after lunch and, asked to follow on, all out again for 137 in the third session.
Making the pink ball game look easy, Alastair Cook scored a fourth double-century and passed 11,500 career runs in England’s innings. Joe Root’s 136 saw him become just the sixth man to make a half-century in 11 straight tests. He’s in prime position to equal AB de Villiers’ record of 50s in 12 consecutive tests in the second match starting on Friday in Leeds.
And Stuart Broad overtook Ian Botham to become England’s second-highest test wicket-taker with 384. Broad’s spell under floodlights near the end, of three wickets for four runs in 11 balls - including two wickets in two deliveries - took him past Botham, who was at the ground as a TV commentator.
Significantly for England with the Ashes in Australia looming at the end of the year, both of its leading test wicket-takers of all time are still playing. Broad’s new-ball partner, James Anderson, is England’s top test bowler on 492 wickets and could become the sixth player to reach 500 in this series.
Broad and Anderson took five wickets each in the match as the West Indies capitulated. Toby Roland-Jones, the new man in the seam attack, finished it off when he forced an outside edge from Alzarri Joseph. Underlining England’s clinical display, Ben Stokes snapped up the tough, low catch to his right in the slips. The result will focus cricket followers again on the demise of the five-day game in the Caribbean. The West Indians were the kings of test cricket in the 1970s and 80s, and have produced lasting greats like Garfield Sobers, Viv Richards and, more recently, Brian Lara, as well as a once-endless supply of world-beating fast bowlers.
At Edgbaston, the West Indies quick bowlers were wayward and unfocused, allowing Cook and Root to score at will. And the batsmen were fragile, save only for Jermaine Blackwood, who hit 79 not out off 76 balls in the first innings in an entertaining but ultimately inconsequential innings.
West Indies still hasn’t won a test in England since 2000. Despite having a reasonable record at home against the English, they have been outclassed on tour, losing their last four series in England 4-0, 3-0, 2-0 and 2-0. This series looks like it might be completely one-sided too.
