Root’s men are crushed
Series surrendered in shambolic fashion after gutless display
ENGLAND were blown away again yesterday as they crashed to a 10-wicket defeat in Antigua to lose the second Test and the series against West Indies.
Joe Root’s side lost 10 wickets for 98 runs to be skittled for just 132 in their second innings. ‘When the wheels come off they really come off,’ said former captain Nasser Hussain.
ENGLAND may have produced ‘total cricket’ in Sri Lanka but their Caribbean tour turned into a total disaster here yesterday.
Even by their standards, a shambolic second Test defeat within three days and a series gone within seven days of play represents a complete fiasco.
This was utterly humiliating for an England side who were firm favourites to repeat their clean sweep of Sri Lanka before Christmas but instead have been handed a painful lesson in how to play by a West Indies side providing echoes of their famous past.
It is barely believable that a series against the eighth-ranked Test side in the world has been decided so quickly, sentencing England’s historic win in the sub-continent and their defeat of India last summer to distant memory.
Remember, West Indies have not won a series against anyone other than Zimbabwe and Bangladesh since 2012 and were expected to be the weakest of opponents for an England side seemingly making real progress under Joe Root.
Goodness, England had won eight of their previous nine Tests before they came here and had appeared to have patented their own allaction way of playing that would soon take them back to the top of the rankings. How wrong that positive prognosis has turned out.
Instead it is Jason n Holder and his proud West Indian side, denied so many of their finest players by t he Twenty20 franchise revolution, who have been superior in every depart men tint woo extraordinary Tests.
England are determined mined to follow Root’s bold template of attacking, one-day style, cricket and emulate Eoin Morgan’s whiteball success but that has been shown up here as a cricketing version of ‘Sarri-ball’ at Chelsea — great when it comes off but terrible when opponents wise up to it.
Most disturbingly, England have no Plan B to fall back on and were complicit in their own demise yesterday as they were bowled out cheaply yet again. Shamefully, they appeared to have no stomach for the fight when the going got tough.
All England needed to do was take a leaf out of West Indies’ book for the correct way to play on a pitch that remained perilous and demanded old-fashioned qualities of application, discipline and concentration.
Darren Bravo, a batsman who hit five sixes in one over in the Caribbean Premier League last season, had all three to show you can play in more than one way by providing the perfect adhesive example. When Bravo became the last West Indian to be dismissed yesterday, finally coming out of his shell with just Shannon Gabriel for company, he had completed the slowest Test 50 this century with a monumental effort lasting 215 balls and taking six hours.
Then, after Bravo had guided West Indies to the heights of 306 all out and a decisive lead of 119, England collapsed in a heap to 132 all out in just 38 balls more collectively than Bravo took to reach his priceless milestone.
To complete England’s misery, West Indies raced to their target of 14 with John Campbell swinging Anderson for six to seal the win.
The most damning indictment of England is that, for all the demons in the pitch and the extra pace in the West Indies attack, they threw almost all their wickets away as if they had not been watching when Bravo was keeping them at bay.
Time after time English batsmen just handed their wickets to West Indies and, just as in their first Test thrashing in Barbados, did not even salvage a semblance of pride by making t heir under- estimated opponents work hard. There were expansive, ill- judged, ju and totally thoughtlhoess drives from fr Jonny Bairstow, B Ben Stokes and Moeen M Ali that led to their stumps being shattered. There T was an awful a attempted cut from RorRy Burns to a loosener loo from Holder that was w far too close for the shot. sho And there was no shot at all from poor Joe Denly, whose debut at 32 turned into a nightmare.
Only Root, who got the thinnest of inside edges to an Alzarri Joseph delivery that neither the bowler nor umpire Chris Gaffaney could detect but was shown up by a review, and Jos Buttler, who was narrowly lbw to Holder, could be said to have been undone by skill from the bowlers among the recognised batsmen.
Yes, West Indies both batted and bowled much better than England and had that all important extra pace that exaggerated the uneven bounce in the surface but this was as l ow as even England have crashed for quite some time.
Let’s not take anything away from West Indies. For more than 20 years now their cricketers have struggled to live up to the legacy of some of the greatest players the game has known and played with a permanent cloud over them.
There have been false dawns but more often than not there have been deep divisions and far too many defeats. Maybe now, under the impressive Holder, they are on their way up again in Test cricket.
West Indies were superb, just as they were in Barbados. Their batsmen eschewed natural Caribbean flamboyance to bat properly against two of England’s greatest seam bowlers in Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad on a still extremely helpful surface.
But, most importantly, their bowlers gave decent impressions of some of those greats, like the two immortalised with their own ends here at the Sir Viv Richards Stadium, in Sir Andy Roberts and Sir Curtly Ambrose.
Gabriel provided the sheer pace, Holder repeatedly attacked the top of off-stump with height and bounce while Roach had the X-factor, exploiting the danger areas in the pitch and was the pick of the attack again. Then there was 22-year-old Joseph, who bravely vowed to play on yesterday just hours after the death of his mother Sharon following a long illness, and paid fitting tribute by taking two wickets on his home ground.
This is a momentous series triumph for West Indies, while England’s wait for their first-ever win in Antigua and only their second series victory in the Caribbean in the last 50 years goes on.
England simply must turn up in St Lucia on Saturday for what is anything but a dead rubber. They will have just the inaugural Test against Ireland at Lord’s in July to come after that before the Ashes and they must arrest what could quickly turn into a rapid decline.
For a start, they cannot repeat this totally gutless display again if they are going to ever fully live up to the obvious talent they have. For now, their biggest-ever year has got off to the worst possible start.