West Indies had a brilliant day at work as their captain Jason Holder ran through England’s batting order, claiming his best bowling Test figures of 6-42 to put his team in the drivers’ seat. Shannon Gabriel who had taken the solitary wicket on the opening day, once again opened the wicket column’s account on the second day.
The lanky pacer went through the defences of Joe Denly, whose feet were rooted to the crease and the off-stump went for a walk. Gabriel once again struck in his next over as he plumbed Rory Burns in front of the wicket with a full-pitched delivery. Richard Kettleborough thought the ball was going down the leg-side but Jason Holder’s review helped West Indies take their second wicket of the day.
It was then a world’s number one Test all-rounder, Jason Holder’s show. Holder first trapped Zak Crawley in front of the wickets after setting him beautifully for the in-swinger but once again had to go upstairs to overturn the standing umpire’s call.
Subsequently, the Windies captain got a bit of extra bounce and moved the ball slightly away to take the outside edge of Ollie Pope’s bat to keeper Shane Dowrich. West Indies had already picked four wickets and they could have had a perfect opening session had Kemar Roach taken Ben Stokes’ catch at fine-leg just at the stroke of lunch when he was on 14.
Post the lunch session, Stokes gave another opportunity and this time Sharmah Brooks bungled the catch at covers when the southpaw was batting on 32. It looked like West Indies would have to pay for the reprieve as runs started to flow for England. Stokes and Buttler, England’s most experienced batsmen, added a 67-runs alliance to get their team back in the contest.
Stokes was taking strides towards the bowler and the ploy was working for him. However, Holder troubled him on the first two balls of an over and produced an outside edge of the left-hander’s bat. Subsequently, Holder invited Jos Buttler for a drive with the ball moving away and the England gloveman took the bait. Shane Dowrich took a fine catch while diving to his right and the tourists had the big fish.
Holder completed his seventh five-wicket haul when he plumbed Jofra Archer but once again had to go upstairs to reverse the on-field call by Richard Kettleborough.
Shai Hope took a good catch of Mark Wood as Holder took his sixth. James Anderson and Dom Bess added valuable 30 runs but Shannon Gabriel soon found the gap between Anderson’s bat and pad to wrap up hosts’ first innings at 204 runs.
On the other hand, West Indies openers John Campbell and Kraigg Brathwaite rotated the strike on regular intervals and thus didn’t allow one on one contest. Campbell survived two leg-before wicket calls against James Anderson. The ball had pitched marginally outside the leg-side once whereas it was going over the wickets on the second occasion. However, Anderson finally had his man when he pitched one a tad fuller as compared to the previous one which was overturned by the third umpire. The umpires stopped play for the bad light and that was stumps on day two.
Scores at stumps on Day 2:
England – 204 in 67.3 overs (Ben Stokes 43, Jos Buttler 35; Jason Holder 6-42, Shannon Gabriel 4-62)
West Indies 57/1 in 19.3 overs (John Campbell 28, Kraigg Brathwaite 20*; James Anderson 1-17). WI trail by 147 runs.
