England clinging on as Windies seamers instigate familiar collapse

Tea England 114 for 8 (Woakes 25*, Leach 10*) vs West Indies

If variety is the spice of the Spice Island, then West Indies have provided it with relish on the first day in Grenada. After ten days of often enervating attrition in Antigua and Barbados, the façade of English batting competence crumbled at the first sign of heat from West Indies’ pumped-up seam attack, as Joe Root’s men shipped eight prime wickets in the space of two sessions, to limp to 114 for 8 with their chances of a rare series win in the Caribbean already looking like a pipedream.

From that moment on, it was a different dynamic, and Zak Crawley, a centurion in Antigua, quickly lost patience with Mayers’ 80mph wobblers in the channel outside off. Having made his discipline on the drive such a feature of that apparent breakthrough innings, it was a familiar failing that sent him on his way for 7 as he flung his hands through a cunningly bowled legcutter, and spooned a simple chance to Brathwaite in the covers.

Root, with a hundred in each of the first two Tests of the series, arrived in the middle after an hour’s play, and found himself faced with a situation more akin to England’s first morning of the series in Antigua, where his team had collapsed in seamer-friendly conditions to 48 for 4. And Mayers never offered him a chance to settle. His fourth ball hit the seam and wobbled wildly round Root’s outside edge; five balls later, Mayers scrambled that same seam, and kissed the edge of a defensive push down the line to have Root caught behind for a nine-ball duck.

Lees, whose introduction to the Test team has come about in part due to his relative success on the seamer-friendly decks at Chester-le-Street, played a compact holding role throughout the morning session. Two of his four boundaries came in the same Seales over, as he capitalised on the young quick’s over-eagerness to make the conditions talk. But when Seales returned for a second spell before lunch, it was with a more probing length outside off stump, and Lees had to hold his nerve as he was beaten four times in five balls, including a thick edge through the cordon for four.

At the other end, Lawrence attempted to bed in for the long haul, after his impressive displays in the first two Tests. But after grinding along to 8 from 31 balls – with West Indies burning the second of their reviews in the process – he had no answer as Seales nipped one back off the seam to pin him below the knee-roll, and he burned a review to boot as England limped to lunch on a sickly 46 for 3.

Five balls and no runs later, Lees’ vigil was ended in uncompromising fashion by a pumped-up Roach, who was adamant that he’d found the edge two balls earlier, but when Brathwaite declined to waste his final review, he merely bombed the edge from round the wicket once more, and this time there was no doubt as Joshua da Silva sent him on his way for 31 (53 for 5).

And then, as if it prove that the events of the previous fortnight had been a fever-dream, Jonny Bairstow capped England’s dramatic reversion to the mean with their third wicket for no runs in the space of 10 balls. Joseph – easily the quickest bowler on either side in the absence of Mark Wood – bent his back on another off-stump lifter, and Bairstow nicked off to da Silva for the 15th duck of his Test career, and his fifth since the start of 2021.

From 53 for 6, it was a familiar race to the bottom for England’s lower order. Ben Foakes was duly pinned on the crease as Seales ripped a bail-trimmer through his defences for 7, at which point England’s run of scores – +31 708207 – read like they were planning an international call to the Netherlands to fill the dead playing time on the final two days of this Test (though hopefully not for a T20I, to judge by past experience).

At least Chris Woakes and Craig Overton broke the run of single-digit scores, not that this had been their original plan for first-day heroics, following their unlikely (and some might say, unwarranted) reprieves in England’s seam attack. But Roach prised them apart after an eighth-wicket stand of 23 – at the time, England’s joint-best of the innings – as he leapt wide on the crease to spear an outstanding nip-backer into the top of off stump (90 for 8).

Woakes, though, held the line well for the remainder of the session – aided by the doughty Jack Leach, who survived a missed chance at slip off Joseph to reach 10 not out. As the break drew nigh, and in the absence of a regular spinner, Brathwaite even turned to Nkrumah Bonner and Jermaine Blackwood for an over apiece of speculative moon-balls. In Barbados, that might have been a sign of surrender to the conditions; here, it was merely mocking England to come and have a go. As things turned out, they didn’t.