England Need To Take 19 Wickets In Two Days:
England needs to take 19 wickets in two days if they are to keep their series alive against the West Indies after the third day of the second test at the Emirates Old Trafford was a washout.
Despite fine weather predicted for Manchester on Sunday and Monday and a fresh seam attack, England’s chances are “not good,” to use the words of Ben Stokes, but they are not absolutely grim. Failure to win in the coming days would mean, however, that the West Indies would retain the Wisden Trophy they won in the Caribbean 18 months ago.
“It looks like we have to take 19 buckets in two days,” Stokes told the leading sports website. “But the wicket has offered something for the whole test so far, so we just need to make sure that we can expose it and deliver as many deliveries as we can, and challenge their defensive shots as much as we can.”
Stuart Broad is back on the squad and is expected to be hungry following his consternation at being overlooked for the first test in Southampton, which West Indies won by four wickets. He ‘s joined by Sam Curran, who made an early breakthrough when John Campbell’s opener came out late on Friday to get the tourists down one wicket still trailing 437 runs.
Chris Woakes is another addition after England decided to rest Mark Wood and James Anderson after their first test efforts and Jofra Archer was omitted on the first morning of this match for his unauthorized trip home to Manchester.
Archer will be available for selection for the third test, also at Old Trafford, after collecting a fine of £ 15,000 from the Disciplinary Panel and issuing him a written notice for his indiscretion.
In the meantime, it’s up to Broad, Curran, Woakes and Stokes to get the job done for England, not to mention Dom Bess, who was going to watch with interest as fellow offspinner Roston Chase claimed a five-wheel drive in the first innings after finding a good spin and bounce.
“It’s not about offering the seam bowlers,” Stokes said. “We have the choice there that we know we can bowl out to the West Indies twice if we have to.”
It was Stoke ‘s performance with the bat that went a long way towards putting England in command at the end of the second day, and his 176 combined with Dom Sibley’s 120 meant that the hosts had scored a first-inning 469 for 9. Had England not lost the first test, for the eighth time in ten episodes, their job would not have been so pressurized in the next two days.
“If we use the first two days as a benchmark for how we want to achieve them, the better we ‘re going to be,” Stokes said. “We ‘re a really good team to come back from defeats, and we’ve proven that.
“If we can keep delivering days and games as we normally do after the first test, we’ll start getting closer to being the No. 1 team, which is definitely our target. “We ‘re in a fantastic position as a group. We’ve got the right coaches, the right manager, the right people helping the players out right now. And I think in two or three years ‘ time, all the rough times we’ve endured-in South Africa and this first game against the West Indies-is a great learning curve, not only for the younger guys on the team at the moment but also for the more seasoned players.
“If you are always learning from mistakes, it’s going to make you a better player as an individual, but also a better team.”
