Tea West Indies 427 and 199 for 3 (S Hope 78*, Chase 1*) need 123 more runs to beat England 258 and 490 for 8 dec
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01:16
Poor fielding England’s downfall again
Kraigg Brathwaite fell five runs short of becoming the first batsman to score two centuries in a first-class match at Headingley, after he and Shai Hope had taken their match returns to epic proportions in a stand of 145, to set West Indies up for what would be an extraordinary victory. At tea they needed 123 runs from 35 overs on a surface that had played truer than many expected.
Five minutes before tea, Brathwaite’s resistance finally cracked when he drove at a wide delivery from Moeen Ali and was held at slip by Ben Stokes. But Hope remained, in every sense, with Shai unbeaten on 78 off 125 balls and, in what had become something akin to a one-day scenario, West Indies remained the side in the stronger position to push for the win if a young team retained the belief. It would be the second-highest run chase in Tests at this ground.
The tally of dropped catches in the match grew, and the latest two chances could be the most crucial of the match. Brathwaite was reprieved twice, firstly by Alastair Cook at slip on 4 off Stuart Broad in the fourth over of the day, then by Broad himself, a return catch in the follow through that did, however, bring a bizarre wicket when it rebounded into the non-striker’s stumps with Kyle Hope out of his ground.
But the reprieve for Brathwaite on 29 proved more important than the fortuitous wicket – Kyle Hope had yet to trouble England in the series – as he had already shown his ability to blunt the England attack. And alongside Shai Hope he had a player with a complementing range of shots – a back-foot drive off Chris Woakes for his first boundary stood out – and it was Hope who took the slightly more positive route until he became a little becalmed in the latter part of the afternoon session.
Brathwaite’s fifty came from 98 balls, Hope’s from 70 with a lovely flick through the leg side off Broad. Their century stand, to follow the 246-run effort in the first innings, made them the first pair of West Indies batsmen to add twin hundred stands in a match since Brian Lara and Ramnaresh Sarwan in Colombo in 2000-01.
In mid-afternoon, England tried to conjure something with forceful spells from Broad and Stokes, the latter not used until the 47th over of the innings, but both batsmen withstood everything, including a few zipping deliveries from Broad and the occasional ball which jumped off a length.
It had been expected that Moeen would have a huge say on the final day, having threatened in the last over the previous evening, but the surface was not as spiteful as had been predicted. Brathwaite made sure he got forward, while Hope made a conscious effort to move well across his stumps to nullify the line outside off which had troubled the South Africans.
By tea, it felt a long time since Kieran Powell edged Broad to fourth slip in Broad’s first spell of the day. Even in those early stages of the morning, when the target seemed a distance figure, Powell had managed to get under the skin of England and shared a few words with James Anderson. If England were frustrated then, they were further agitated in the afternoon session with Broad angrily kicking at the footmarks in his followthrough, which brought a ticking-off from S Ravi. Given how liberally the ICC have been handing out sanctions recently, it may bring interest from the match referee. West Indies had England rattled. It could be a story for the ages.
Andrew McGlashan is a deputy editor at ESPNcricinfo
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Source: ESPN Crickinfo