England have three wickets in hand and only eight runs to overcome WI’s first-innings score
Jamie Smith launches a six over the leg-side • Darren Staples/Getty Images
Tea England 274 for 7 (Root 87, Smith 57*, Stokes 54) trail West Indies 282 (Brathwaite 61, Holder 59, Atkinson 4-67, Woakes 3-69) by eight runs
Jamie Smith picked up where his elders had left the England cause, his unbeaten half-century steering the home side to within eight runs of West Indies’ first-innings total at tea on the second day at Edgbaston.
Joe Root posted his 63rd Test fifty in this third and final contest between the sides and Ben Stokes his 33rd but, by the interval, both had departed leaving Smith, the 24-year-old wicketkeeper-batter playing his third Test, on 57 not out, already his second half-century in the format.
Smith, who scored 70 on debut in England’s only innings of the first Test against West Indies at Lord’s, brought up his latest landmark punishing a full Jason Holder delivery wide of long-on for four, his sixth of the innings. He was joined at the break by Chris Woakes, on 21 not out.
The afternoon session started ominously for West Indies and not because the hover covers had been deployed during the lunch break as that turned out to be a preventive measure. When play commenced, however, Alzarri Joseph conceded 10 off the first over, including a short ball right in Stokes’ hitting zone which he pulled away with ease for four to bring up his half-century, having dined on 48 not out.
Root moved to 12,000 Test runs off a similar delivery pulled to the boundary three balls later. But the short-ball tactics paid off in Alzarri Joseph’s next over, this one getting slightly higher up around chest-height as Stokes launched into a cramped pull just in front of square leg where Kraigg Brathwaite was stationed and took a sharp catch leaping with both hands fully outstretched above his head.
At that point England still trailed by 113 runs but Smith was soon into his stride. If his attempted hook off Alzarri Joseph looked ungainly as the ball looped off his glove over keeper Joshua Da Silva and to the boundary rope, his next shot pulled onto the roof of the Hollies Stand never to return was all business.
Then, just as he had in the first Test at Lord’s, left-arm spinner Gudakesh Motie denied Root his century, on this occasion with one that kept low and slid onto the inside edge of the front pad as the batter stepped forward to defend.
Root and Stokes had steadied England after the home side’s first-day batting collapse spilled into the second morning. The pair shared a 115-run partnership for the sixth wicket after England lost two key batters in as many overs to be 54 for 5 within the first half-hour on Saturday, having resumed on 38 for 3.
Ollie Pope, who had been 6 not out overnight, added just four more via a boundary edged wide of second slip before he was bowled by a Shamar Joseph ball which kept low as he attempted to cut and deflected onto his stumps.
Harry Brook faced just three balls before he fell driving at a Jayden Seales delivery which moved away slightly, brushing the edge as it did so and landing in the gloves of Da Silva behind the stumps.
Root had survived on 3 when, in the second over of the day, Seales struck him on the pad and, despite hearty West Indies appeals for lbw they neglected to review when he was adjudged not out. Replays later showed that, according to ball-tracking, it would have hit leg stump.
In reaching 14, Root overtook Brian Lara’s 11,953 Test runs to move into seventh on the all-time run-scorers’ list as he set about his rebuilding effort, striking Alzarri Joseph for back-to-back fours to move to 25 and he brought up his fifty with a single off Holder.
Stokes was also resolute, his punch down the ground for four off Holder shortly before lunch the perfect illustration, and he slog-swept Motie into the Hollies to move within one more boundary of his fifty.
Valkerie Baynes is a general editor, women’s cricket, at ESPNcricinfo
