West Indies Tour 2022

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Sir Vivian Richards Stadium is a stadium in North Sound, Antigua, Antigua and Barbuda. It was built for use in the 2007 Cricket World Cup where it hosted Super 8 matches. The stadium usually caters for 10,000 people, but temporary seating doubled its capacity for the 2007 World Cup. The stadium is named after former West Indies cricket captain and legend Viv Richards.

Location
The stadium is about 10–20 minutes' drive from the capital city, St. John's, and the country's international airport. The venue cost approximately US$60 million to build, with the majority of the funds coming from a Chinese Government grant.[1] The first Test match staged on the ground began on 30 May 2008 when the West Indies hosted Australia, with the match ending in a draw.

Facilities

The stadium in 2012
The stadium constitutes two main stands: the Northern Stand and the five-story South Stand. In 2008, the roof of the South Stand was damaged by high winds.[2] Other facilities include a practice pitch for the various cricket teams, training infrastructure and a media centre. Sir Viv Richards Stadium is one of the few state-of-the-art venues that encompass underground passageways for the cricket teams to move about in.[3][4]

Prior to the start of the first Test against England on 13 April 2015, the north and south ends were renamed for two former West Indies cricketers, Sir Curtly Ambrose and Sir Andy Roberts.

Outfield controversy
The ground's second Test match against England on 13 February 2009 was abandoned after only ten balls due to the outfield's dangerous condition.

The groundstaff had applied extra layers of sand after recent heavy rain, and again after a brief shower the morning of the match; this resulted in West Indian bowlers Jerome Taylor and Fidel Edwards being unable to gain any traction when running in.[5]

The sandy nature of the outfield had earnt the ground the nickname of 'Antigua's 366th beach' in the buildup to the game.[6]

Following the abandonment, inquiries were held by the WICB and the ICC: these caused great embarrassment for West Indies cricket.

The ICC subsequently ordered that the ground be suspended from staging any international matches for twelve months, and an official warning was issued to the WICB.

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We win toss and bat

[man in the stand]

Lovely location and looks like most of the crowd are Brits!

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57-4 lunch traditional start

[man in the stand]

Bit of a recovery..though 5 down now.

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145-5 tea good recovery the ginger duo batted well before Stokes dragged on
Bairstow looking set

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ESPN view decent recovery by the Ginger Yorkshireman and the Oakes family

England 268 for 6 (Bairstow 109*) vs West Indies

Jonny Bairstow started his day as the glue holding England together and he ended it with an unbeaten century that put his side firmly back in the game against West Indies in Antigua.

If the England's hierarchy were to make an appraisal of their so-called red-ball reset before lunch, the result would have been an epic fail. Any review will of course come much later - and rightly so - but, given the criticism of the selection decisions taken in the aftermath of a dire Ashes drubbing, they could have done with a fresher start. Instead, it was a case of the more things change, the more things stay the same early on.

Bairstow, whose retention was among their least contentious calls after he was England's only centurion of that fateful campaign in Australia and scorer of a hundred in the warm-up fixture for this match, came in with the tourists teetering on 48 for 4 inside the first hour and a half.

But he combined with fellow experienced hand Ben Stokes for a rebuilding partnership worth 67 for the fifth wicket and then put on 99 runs with old new kid Ben Foakes to raise England to a respectable score at stumps.

Foakes' recall as wicketkeeper-batter in place of Jos Buttler perhaps only raised eyebrows in that it had taken so long and after Andrew Strauss's edict as interim managing director that he "get a decent run of things" he could afford to feel as comfortable as he looked through much of his innings. Having been in and out of the Test side sporadically since 2018, Foakes was among those given an opportunity on this tour to cement his place in the long term.

He looked in fine touch from the off. He edged the second ball he faced through the slips for four but followed that with two more authoritative drives to the boundary in the same Kemar Roach over as he set out at better than a run-a-ball. Foakes struck five more fours before he was pinned back by a Jason Holder delivery that struck the knee roll in line with leg stump, his review turned down.

But the day belonged to Bairstow, who crafted a gritty and intelligent innings on a dry, slow pitch that offered little to either side. He faced 127 balls for a well-earned fifty, brought up with a four off Veerasammy Permaul as he continued to deploy the cut to great effect any time there was width on offer. But he upped the tempo after that, scoring his next 50 off just 63 balls, raising his hundred by sweeping Kraigg Brathwaite to the boundary and celebrating with an elated roar and punch of the air.

With the ball swinging in the morning session, Roach had bowled beautifully to claim two wickets, while Jayden Seales and Holder took one each - the latter without conceding a run from his five overs. Holder finally gave up a run, two in fact, off his 33rd ball to a Bairstow cut.

Having won the toss, England captain Joe Root opted to bat first. Debutant opener Alex Lees scored off the fifth ball he faced, threading Roach through backward point for four. He only survived another three balls though, before he was rapped on the front knee roll by a full, straight Roach delivery which narrowly evaded the bat and struck in line with middle and off and, despite a hopeful review, Lees was sent on his way with just those four runs to his name.

Zak Crawley had looked in decent form, driving Seales to the boundary twice in three balls. But then Joshua Da Silva took a stunner - diving low to his left as Crawley sent an inside edge off Seales that slipped past off stump into the keeper's outstretched glove - and all of a sudden, England were 17 for 2 with barely 20 minutes gone.

In ever-familiar territory with an innings resurrection riding on Root's shoulders - this time at No. 3 in England's revamped line-up - it was almost 23 for 3 when Root, on 9, slashed at a rising Roach delivery which then sailed through the fingers of Jermaine Blackwood at third slip. As the ball raced to the boundary, both sides were left to ponder the potential significance of the moment.

Roach ensured it was a moot point, probably to Blackwood's relief, as Root left the very next ball, a pinpoint in-ducker that clipped the top of off stump and England were, in fact, 27 for 3 and in a bad place.

Dan Lawrence was reprieved when Blackwood missed a tough chance off Roach in the cordon again. But Blackwood eventually clung on to dismiss Lawrence, who reached for a Holder outswinger and sent a thick outside edge to second slip.


Stokes and Bairstow ground through the second hour of the session, adding nine runs in 8.2 overs before lunch.

After the break, Holder failed to react at second slip as Stokes, on 22, toe-ended Joseph very clearly in his direction, and Seales saw an edge off Stokes drop just short of John Campbell at slip immediately before conceding back-to-back fours in an eventful 40th over. Seales produced the perfect riposte on the last ball, a fuller-length delivery that swung in late to defeat Stokes' attempted drive via an inside edge on to leg stump.

After Foakes' dismissal, Chris Woakes arrived to round out the 'Stokes, Foakes, Woakes' cult theme of the day and he shared an unbroken 54-run partnership with Bairstow, who ended the day 109 not out, to see England through without further loss.

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311 Bairstow 140

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Wicket gets slower and lower and Jason Holder becomes an even greater player

ESPN view

West Indies 202 for 4 (Holder 43*, Bonner 34*) trail England 311 (Bairstow 140, Seales 4-79) by 109 runs

Two key partnerships at either end of the day pushed West Indies closer to parity with England on the second day of a to-and-fro Test in Antigua.
This match has had not so much the twists and turns of a helter-skelter but the slow, loping swings of a pirate ship ride after England's recovery from 48 for 4 to a respectable 311 built on Jonny Bairstow's century and then West Indies' rapid response via Kraigg Brathwaite and John Campbell as the visiting bowlers failed to penetrate with the new ball.

West Indies were enjoying all the fun of the fair at 44 without loss by lunch, Brathwaite going along at a run-a-ball, but by tea they were 127 for 4 and England had wrested back some control. Then Nkrumah Bonner and Jason Holder combined for an unbroken 75-run partnership for the fifth wicket that kept their side in the contest.

Chris Woakes was one of the bowlers tipped by England's interim director of cricket, Andrew Strauss, to blossom as a leader of the attack in the controversial absence of long-time spearheads James Anderson and Stuart Broad. But he endured a torrid day, conceding 23 off his first three overs and only finding relief when he snared the wicket of Jermaine Blackwood moments before the second of several brief showers which halted play intermittently through the day, brought about an early tea break. Woakes was struck for 10 fours in as many overs, which cost 51 runs on a benign pitch that for a second straight day offered little to either side.

When he rejoined the attack for two more overs - before yet another of the squalls which had dampened England's efforts with a reverse-swinging ball brought about stumps - Woakes conceded just three more runs.

Spinner Jack Leach had bowled five tight overs until Campbell clubbed him for four over extra cover and Brathwaite thundered a six down the ground in Leach's sixth as West Indies' opening swelled to 83. But it was Craig Overton who made the initial breakthrough with a short ball down the leg side that tempted Campbell into a pull and brushed the glove on the way through to keeper Ben Foakes to punctuate West Indies' keen start.

As Shamarh Brooks took West Indies into the nineties with consecutive boundaries off Overton, Ben Stokes entered the attack to bowl for the first time since suffering a side strain during the fourth Ashes Test in Sydney.

A single off Stokes' first ball brought up Brathwaite's fastest Test fifty - off just 62 balls - but Mark Wood, whose pace and reverse swing kept West Indies' batters on their toes, struck when the West Indies captain chased a wide delivery only to send it directly to Overton at gully. Then Stokes removed Brooks, edging to Joe Root for a simple catch at slip, and suddenly West Indies were wobbling.

Foakes put down a difficult chance diving low to his left off Blackwood, who was yet to score when he got an inside edge to a Wood delivery which found the keeper's glove but failed to stay there as he went to ground.

Blackwood, eventually caught in the gully by Overton, was given not out by umpire Joel Wilson amid hearty appeals from the England side, who swiftly reviewed. UltraEdge confirmed Blackwood had indeed laid bat on ball before it struck his thigh pad and looped into the air as West Indies lost a fourth wicket for 44 runs.

Leach bowled nine maidens in all - seven of them on the trot in the evening session - in an excellent comeback from a chastening Ashes tour as Holder and Bonner chose their moments well in a sensible, steadying effort. Holder led the way, picking off six fours and a cracking six - over long-on off Root - to close on 43 not out, with Bonner on 34.


Earlier, England resumed at 268 for 6 with Bairstow on 109 but, with the ball only six overs old, West Indies had designs on wrapping up the innings quickly. They did so before lunch, but not before Bairstow had reached 140 and taken the England total into elusive territory - past the 300-mark for the first time since August 2021.

Jayden Seales came on in the fifth over and struck with his fourth delivery, an excellent short ball that touched Woakes' glove and sailed through to keeper Joshua Da Silva, ending his seventh-wicket stand with Bairstow at 71. Seales then made it two in three balls when Overton stabbed a length ball towards short leg, where the crouching Bonner took a roundabout catch via his midriff, thighs and eventually hands.

Bairstow continued to accumulate, driving Holder with aplomb through cover moments before feeding him a return catch that bobbled out of Holder's hands. Bairstow was eventually last man out, top-edging Alzarri Joseph high over backward point, where Holder scrambled around and pouched an excellent catch.

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Slow days cricket Wood injured which limits the bowling attack this will take some winning
#
ESPN view

West Indies 373 for 9 (Bonner 123, Permaul 26*) lead England 311 by 62 runs

Nkrumah Bonner played an innings of patience, resilience and reward to mirror his international career with a hard-earned century guiding West Indies to a first-innings lead over England.



Bonner fell for 123 shortly before stumps on the third day in Antigua, to the elation of England's bowlers who had done it tough on a benign pitch against a stubborn West Indies line-up. Veerasammy Permaul offered keen resistance to remain unbeaten on 26 at stumps with Jayden Seales yet to score and the hosts 62 runs ahead.

At the age of 33, Bonner raised the second century of his fledgling Test career, which is only 10 matches old and began in February last year - almost a decade after he made his international debut in a T20 against England at the Oval in 2011. Bonner played just one more T20I, in March 2012, before eventually earning a recall to the West Indies set-up, initially in January last year for three ODIs in Bangladesh before playing two Tests on that same tour.

His first Test ton had come at the same ground as this one, a similarly attritional 113 not out in a Player-of-the-Match performance in the drawn first Test with Sri Lanka. On this occasion, he batted for nine hours to lead West Indies' recovery from 127 for 4, build a small but potentially crucial lead and put merciless miles in the legs of an England attack without - no, not those two - an injured Mark Wood, who disappeared to the changing room shortly before lunch having bowled just five overs for the day and 17 for the match before succumbing to an elbow problem.

Bonner resumed on 34 not out and with West Indies 109 runs in arrears, having helped haul the hosts back into the contest in partnership with Jason Holder after the tumble of wickets had all but ruined the solid foundation laid by an 83-run opening stand on day two.

Holder fell to Ben Stokes - and his own indecision - early on the third day, adding just two runs to his overnight 43 before making a late move to leave one around off stump and edged a catch to wicketkeeper Ben Foakes, ending his union with Bonner at 79.

Stokes almost had Bonner, on 40 at the time, attempting to pull a bouncer which looped towards midwicket, where substitute fielder Ollie Pope dived forward but couldn't manage to grasp it.

Bonner brought up his fifty prodding a single through the covers and he faced another 15 balls for his next scoring shot, launching Wood over the fence at fine leg for six off a top edge.

He had a life on 73, when Zak Crawley spilled an edge off Jack Leach at slip, but reached his century off 257 deliveries on the second ball of the evening session, sweeping a Leach half-volley on leg stump behind square for four. Bonner celebrated with a relieved sigh as he embraced Kemar Roach, with whom he ultimately shared a partnership to follow the theme of the day - patience - worth 44 off 173 balls for the eighth wicket.

But when Bonner nudged Leach to backward point and the pair dashed off for a single, they were chancing the arm of Pope, who fired the ball to the striker's end and Foakes removed the bails with Roach just shy of his crease. Roach had provided steadfast support to Bonner, facing 89 balls for his 15 runs.

Twice England thought they had Bonner lbw to Leach but they failed to overturn Joel Wilson's decisions, upheld on umpire's call with ball-tracking suggesting it was clipping leg stump on both occasions. Bonner was also given out lbw to Stokes on 121 but successfully reviewed after getting an inside edge.

They finally broke through when captain Joe Root, running out of ideas, brought Dan Lawrence into the attack to almost immediate effect as Bonner feathered his fifth delivery to Foakes down the leg side, although it took an England review to overturn umpire Gregory Brathwaite's not-out decision with replays showing the faintest of edges.

Stokes ended up bowling 28 overs - with 2 for 42 to show for it - his heaviest innings workload since 2015, having only just returned to bowling after breaking down with a side strain in the fourth Ashes Test.


Much had been made of England's 12-match stretch without breaking the 300-mark before Jonny Bairstow's century led them to 311 in their first innings here, but West Indies had endured a virtually identical run dating back to the second Test against Sri Lanka in Antigua last March.

Their ability to forge partnerships was key as they passed the milestone on Thursday, all but the first one held together by Bonner, on a day when 171 runs were scored from 90.1 overs.

His most-substantial stand of the day came with Joshua Da Silva, who wisely reviewed his lbw dismissal to Craig Overton when on 16, but there was no such reprieve shortly after lunch when Leach, who at that point had bowled well for no reward, rapped him on the back pad with one that skidded onto the knee roll. Da Silva's review failed this time, with replays showing the ball was hitting leg stump, but he had already helped add another 73 valuable runs.

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Better day entertainment wise, they have bowled averagely in the second innings

ESPN REPORT

England 311 and 217 for 1 (Crawley 117*, Root 84*) lead West Indies 375 (Bonner 123, Brathwaite 55) by 153 runs

Joe Root looked genuinely impressed by what he was seeing. As Zak Crawley drove Kemar Roach down the ground for a boundary - not exactly sweetly struck but with the momentum of his considerable levers behind it - the England captain met him in the middle of the pitch for a couple of fist-bumps and approving nods, chattering away in encouragement and eliciting a broad grin from his young charge.




Given that it was boundary number eight of 16 and counting for Crawley, who was compiling the second Test century of his career, the exchange may not have been unusual but in the circumstances, it stood out.

After a dirty day three when Root more commonly wore a look of anguish as his attack failed to capitalise on prior opportunity, not to mention a tumultuous start to the year, England turned the tables on West Indies with an unbroken second-wicket stand in Antigua worth 193, a century and fifty so far to its protagonists and a 153-run lead heading into the final day.



The hosts failed to make further inroads after Roach removed debutant opener Alex Lees, lbw in single figures for the second time in the match, to put the tourists at 24 for 1, still 40 runs in arrears.

On a pitch that had admittedly offered nothing for the bowlers all match, the West Indies bowlers leaked runs, Veerasammy Permaul particularly expensive in conceding 51 off his 10 overs.

Fellow left-arm spinner Jack Leach, meanwhile, had been one of the brighter lights for England, bowling 20 maidens - almost half his overs - as he took 2 for 79, including West Indies' last wicket with the third ball of the day as the hosts took a 64-run first-innings lead.

Quick Jayden Seales was the man dismissed, and he did not enjoy much more success with the ball, 12 wicketless overs costing 51 runs.

But Roach, who was getting considerable swing with the new ball on the fourth morning, set Lees up with a series of deliveries that moved away from the left-hander before banging one in full and straight to beat the inside edge and slam into the front pad. Lees reviewed, perhaps in hope after seeing Crawley successfully overturn an lbw decision from umpire Gregory Brathwaite in the first over, only to have it confirmed that the ball was crashing into leg stump.

Crawley was yet to score when he was reprieved the first time, with Hawk-Eye showing the ball was missing leg stump by some way. He had moved to 18 when West Indies burned a review shortly after Lees' dismissal, Crawley adjudged not out to a Roach inswinger that hit him high on the back leg outside off stump.

He had to wait out a 10-minute rain delay and Alzarri Joseph maidens either side of it on 49 before he regained the strike from Root and flipped Roach off his hip for a single to bring up his fifty off 100 balls. Crawley peeled off his next fifty from 81 balls as he and Root hit full flow and West Indies floundered for ideas despite trying seven different bowling options.


Caught behind off Seales for just 8 in the first innings, Crawley tightened up his defence but played expansively where it was warranted, pulling the short ball with authority, cutting anything wide and finding the boundary with the sweep and drive also.

Root raised his half-century late in the afternoon session with a four off Permaul through third, and Crawley survived a hearty shout by West Indies, thinking he'd been caught at slip off the spinner, but for replays to show he had edged the ball into the pitch before it bobbed up to the fielder.


Having scored 267 against Pakistan at Southampton in August 2020, his eighth Test, Crawley had made 12 single-figure scores - including two ducks - in 21 innings since.

Called back into the side for the first time since the English summer for the last three Ashes Tests when England initially dropped Rory Burns and then Haseeb Hameed, Crawley scored a second-innings 77 in Sydney and survived the post-series clear-out, which also saw Lees called up to accompany him at the top of the order.

Just like 19 months before, Crawley again lived up to the potential that put him there as he and Root gave England something to smile about before the intermittent rain that had punctuated play briefly a few times set in.

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Draw in the end may have had a sneak if they had reviewed against Holder on an LBW they didn't and he would have been given out, painful wicket, Wood doubtful for the rest of the tour, chance for Saq?

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The Kensington Oval is a stadium located to the west of the capital city Bridgetown on the island of Barbados. It is the pre-eminent sporting facility on the island and is primarily used for cricket.[3][4] it has hosted many important and exciting cricket games between local, regional, and international teams during its more than 120-year history.
Cricket at the Oval began in 1882 when the Pickwick Cricket Club assumed formal ownership of the ground.[5] The first international match held was in 1895 when Slade Lucas' side visited the island. The first Test match was held in January 1930, when the West Indies and England played to a draw. Since the genesis there have been a total of 43 Test matches played on the Kensington Oval grounds, 21 of those matches won by the West Indian cricket team. The new stadium has been commemorated through two 2007 Barbadian postage stamps.[6]

Redevelopment
Structures and facilities
The stands of the Kensington Oval were extensively rebuilt for the 2007 Cricket World Cup in a BDS$90M (US$45 Million) redevelopment.[7] Demolition of the old stadium began on schedule in June 2006 after completion of the first Test against Pakistan. Innotech Construction Inc. reconstructed the new Kensington Oval in late September into early October 2006 and the team from the Barbados Light & Power Company cut down and removed some of the old utility poles at the traffic lights at the Holborn Circle, the entrances and exits of Fontabelle Road, Spring Garden Highway, Prescod Boulevard and Harbour Road and they planted new utility poles with electrical transmitters attached on to them. They also dug up, resurfaced and repaved Prescod Boulevard and Fontabelle Road just in time for Cricket World Cup 2007 in Barbados. The names of the former stands which made up the Kensington stadium were the George Challenor stand, the Hall and Griffith, the Kensington, the Mitchie Hewitt, the Pickwick, and the Three Ws stand plus the Peter Short Media Centre. Most of these names have been retained.[8]

Outfield
In 2004, the STRI construction team were chosen to redevelop the Kensington Oval outfield, after they were previously involved with the Lord's Cricket Ground outfield reconstruction. The topsoil on the grounds previous outfield was a sandy clay loam, which struggled to cope with Bridgetown's occasional heavy rainfall, with climate data indicating that a storm lasting up to an hour could dump about 50mm of rain once every five years. The topsoil was a complete mixture of soils and significantly varied in depth, lying over ancient coral reef limestone.

The new outfield consists of; 175mm of amended root-zone, 125mm of unamended root-zone sand, a 50mm blinding layer and a 100mm gravel drainage layer. Although many types of grass options was suggested to be used for the outfield, it was decided to use Tifway 419 hybrid Bermuda grass as this type of grass is highly disease resistant, dense and spreads quickly to ensure quick recovery from injury and allows close mowing.[9] The pitch square was reconstructed with four main individual pitches and a profile consisting of; 200mm of clay, over 150mm of medium-fine sand along with a gravel drainage layer. The square's soil is made up of 71% clay, 14% silt and 14% sand and during the redevelopment it was isolated from the rest of the ground so that it could be constructed before the outfield was completed. The pitch square was sown down with Princess Bermuda grass, with the base and soil added in layers, before completion in May 2006.[10]

Events
The Kensington Oval has also hosted many non-cricket events, such as matches of the Barbados national football team, hockey, inter-school athletics, Miss Barbados pageants, and concert events. The ground also has a jumbo TV screen and also a jacuzzi type area, for fans to watch while relaxing in the pool (similar to Chase Field in Phoenix, Arizona). Behind this is a large grassy hill for fans to have picnics on, which has a bunker underneath for the media.

On 5 August 2011 Rihanna performed at the Kensington Oval for the first time in her home country on her Loud Tour. She planned another show for 1 November 2013 as a part her Diamonds World Tour, however the concert was cancelled due to technical difficulties.

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ESPN View

England 244 for 3 (Root 119*, Lawrence 91) vs West Indies

Two 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.

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Fortress Bridgetown beckons after Antiguan appetiser

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.

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Joe Root and Dan Lawrence upped the tempo Getty Images
Root'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.

[man in the stand]

Root doing what he does...another 100+ score.. I know England have been short of wins lately but you dread to think what the record would have been without him.

Pity this looks like another draw wicket..