Holder and Dowrich punish wicketless England as West Indies grind Joe Root and Co into the dirt
FOR England, desolation was added to destruction, humiliation was piled on misery.
Joe Root and his team endured many hours of unremitting torture as West Indies tried to squeeze every last drop of hope from their beings.
If you thought day two was bad, day three of the First Test reached new levels of one-sided embarrassment and suffering.
On Thursday, England lost all ten wickets in the space of 21 overs. On Friday, they failed to take a single wicket in 67.1 overs.
West Indies captain Jason Holder made 202 not out and wicketkeeper Shane Dowrich 116 as they put on 295 unbroken runs for the seventh wicket.
Don’t forget, the Windies lost five wickets for nine runs at one stage on the second evening.
Holder declared as soon as he celebrated - with huge gusto - reaching his double-century from just 229 balls and England were set a target of 628 to win.
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The number was so big, so distant, that it appeared almost to be mocking England. West Indies have never set a higher target.
Rory Burns and Keaton Jennings did manage to negotiate their way through 20 overs to the close and England finished 56-0.
It might be unique in the history of Test cricket for 18 wickets to fall one day and none the next.
Burns, although not always in control, flashed a few fours and his 39 not out makes him England’s highest scorer in the match.
But Burns, Jennings and several other batsmen will have to produce something miraculous over the next two days if England are to wriggle out of this one. England need the small matter of 572 more runs for victory.
The harrowing start to England’s year comes on the back of a 4-1 home victory last summer over India, the world’s No.1 team, and a whitewash of Sri Lanka just a couple of months ago.
England were overwhelming favourites to win this series and some of us thought it could be 3-0. Geoffrey Boycott dismissed the Windies as a bunch of average, ordinary cricketers and he wasn’t alone in that view.
The truth is that, In comparison to the Windies’ four-pronged pace assault, England’s attack had all the menace of a feather duster. Holder and Dowrich were able to do almost as they pleased.
One worrying consequence was that, because they were the best bowlers by such a distance, James Anderson and especially Ben Stokes were flogged and bowled far more overs than ideal in such a hopeless cause.
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Stokes has bulldozed his way through 50 overs in three days which, with another Test in Antigua next week and a momentous year ahead, is a high-risk strategy, no matter how willing the horse.
The rest of the attack was virtually impotent with Sam Curran offering little pace or swing, Moeen Ali’s three wickets were squeezed into three overs on Thursday evening and Adil Rashid was trusted to bowl only nine overs, which went for 61 runs. Root bowled himself more than his Yorkshire team-mate.
It was almost as though England were operating on a different pitch to the Windies speedsters who caused such havoc 24 hours earlier.
With hindsight, England should have played Stuart Broad and Chris Woakes instead of Curran and Rashid.
But the gulf between the teams has been so wide that it surely wouldn’t have made much difference. This match was done as a contest once England were routed for 77 all out and that had nothing to do with picking the wrong bowlers.
Broad actually came on the field as a sub fielder near the end of the Windies’ innings and received the biggest cheer of the day from England’s supporters.
Holder is a hugely impressive man. The game in the Caribbean has long been riven by divisions and inter-island rivalries but everybody respects the calm and dignified 6ft 7ins all-rounder.
While many big names have preferred to play T20 around the world for big money, Holder remains unstintingly loyal to this once-proud cricket region.
He was just 23 when appointed West Indies captain, a novice who scarcely knew his own game let alone the workings of the minds of ten others.
But he has become a fine cricketer and now is the owner of three Test centuries, two against England. His bowling has improved so much that he took 33 Test wickets at 12 apiece in 2018.
Dowrich averaged 4.80 in three Tests against England in 2017 so it’s fair to say his graph is pointing upwards.
Holder’s innings was the highest in history by a No.8 in the second innings of a Test match and he and Dowrich became only the tenth Nos. 7 and 8 to make centuries in the same innings.
Holder reached his century with a straight six off Rashid from just 99 deliveries and altogether he cleared the boundary eight times.
About the only moment of alarm came when Holder, on 127, skied the third delivery sent down by opening batsman turned part-time medium-pacer Jennings and Burns, running backwards, couldn’t cling onto the difficult chance.
