Southee and Henry strike early to turn the screw after disciplined batting display

The Report by Andrew Miller30-Nov-2019England 39 for 2 (Burns 24*, Root 6*) trail New Zealand 375 (Latham 105, Mitchell 73, Watling 55, Broad 4-73) by 336 runsEngland’s dicey fortunes took another turn for the precarious on the second day at Hamilton, as New Zealand’s seamers found movement and energy with the new ball in a torrid final hour, to consolidate their grip on the series after another four-and-a-half sessions of hard graft from their batsmen had visibly drained their visitors’ resolve.By the close, England were clinging on through their under-pressure captain, Joe Root – who has rarely felt more desperate for a score – and Rory Burns, who survived two dropped catches and an under-edged drive past the off stump in scratching his way to an unbeaten 24. Ugly runs will do just fine, of course, but the hounding that England endured in their 18 evening-session overs merely compounded the difference in confidence between the two camps.Though a late flurry of wickets (and runs) in New Zealand’s own innings had hinted at a pitch that had quickened up from the slightly spurious greentop of the first morning, the contest came alive from the moment that Tim Southee and Matt Henry were handed New Zealand’s new ball.Dom Sibley had barely found his bearing when he was thumped a savage blow on the helmet by Southee – sconed on the badge just as he had been in England’s warm-up in Whangarei – and four overs later he swished loosely across the line to be pinned lbw for 4.Daryl Mitchell plays a shot•Getty Images

Joe Denly barely endured any longer: Henry had already been denied Burns’ scalp when Ross Taylor shelled a diving chance at first slip, but Denly couldn’t escape his clutches, grazing an edge for BJ Watling to cling on low behind the stumps. Burns, his balance all over the place, was lucky to survive again when Jeet Raval flung himself at an airy clip at midwicket, and England could well have lost a third to the final ball of the day when New Zealand’s master of chaos, Neil Wagner, forced Root to flinch a lifter just wide of leg gully.The intent New Zealand displayed with the ball made light of a surface that England’s own bowlers (with the honourable exception of Stuart Broad) had at times made to look like a featherbed. But moreover it was a tribute to the tactics employed by New Zealand’s batsmen – particularly their first-day centurion Tom Latham, and today’s sixth-wicket mainstays, Watling and the debutant Daryl Mitchell.Between them, that trio marshalled a first-innings total of 375 that spanned a hefty 129.1 overs. It ended up being some way shy of the 201 overs they had ground out at Mount Maunganui last week, largely thanks to Broad, whose cross-seaming screamer from the final ball before tea dislodged the steadfast Watling for 55 from 192 balls and set in motion a frantic race through the tail as the final five wickets fell for 60 inside 13 overs.Up until that finale, England had gone through their motions with as much energy as they could muster. Chris Woakes was line-and-length personified in another economical display, while Jofra Archer occasionally touched 140kph in another barrel-scraping display from a hard-worked thoroughbred who desperately looks in need of a rest. His fortunes were best summed up in a lively joust with Mitchell Santner, who twice in an over hoicked his short balls over fine leg for six, on the second occasion taking out a luckless security guard who had been looking the other way behind the rope.But ultimately it was the sight of Ben Stokes, his dodgy knee already causing him so much discomfort, charging in time and again in a bid to be his side’s game-changer once again, that was the clearest indication of the direction in which this contest is currently headed. After limping out of the attack after two overs on the first day, he defied logic by returning for a further 11 today. Lion-hearted and loyal to his captain, maybe, but wicketless and futile at the same time, especially with four Tests in South Africa looming within the month.Stokes’ involvement was at least an indication that England believed the contest was not out of reach. And at 191 for 5 in the first hour of the morning, it had indeed looked rather promising, after Broad had induced a rare misjudgement from Tom Latham to peg back his off stump for 105, before Henry Nicholls’ flapped a Sam Curran bouncer down Broad’s throat at backward square leg.

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But then again, England had thought they were in the contest in Mount Maunganui as well, where New Zealand had been tottering at 197 for 5 before Watling and co cranked their innings up to a monstrous 615 for 9 declared. And while such riches proved to be out of reach here, their runs on the board felt mightily significant by the close.The bulk of those were mined from Watling’s sixth-wicket stand of 124 with the new boy Mitchell, whose handful of cameos in the T20 series were scant preparation for the emotion and pressure of a Test debut innings, but who proved very much up to the challenge. He took his time to get going, digging deep for eight scoreless deliveries (with his mum filming them all on her phone) before lumping a rare Woakes long-hop through midwicket for a very cathartic first boundary.And thereafter he was away – not in the sense of a free-flowing rampage, but in the “block, block, cash in” sense of a man who trusted his technique, the pitch, his team-mate and his team’s tactics, to force England to dig deep, exhaust themselves, and offer up the odd ball that had to be put away – such as the monstrous golf-swing of a straight drive with which Mitchell climbed into an otherwise perfectly serviceable legbreak from Denly that travelled the best part of 110m back over the bowler’s head.There wasn’t much of that ilk to be seen from either batsman throughout their alliance. Watling had one significant let-off, on 1, when the stand-in keeper Ollie Pope was unable to stay low enough to scoop a low edge off Curran, and New Zealand were able to add just 24 runs in the first hour after lunch – a-nip-and-tuck period in which two quick wickets at 280-odd for 7 could well have dragged their innings quickly back into the mire.But that just never looked like happening. The new ball came and went with the minimum of alarm, and as the second hour wore on, so the scoring opportunities became more frequent. Mitchell motored to his maiden Test fifty with a brace of boundaries in a tired over from Stokes, the latter a sweetly timed pull through midwicket that earned a wave from a very proud mum, and Watling passed his own landmark soon afterwards – crunching a Curran half-volley through the covers.But then came the one that misbehaved from Broad – a snorter that fizzed off a startled splice to Burrns in the gully, and suddenly the door was open once more. Broad kicked his way through it after the resumption, persuading Mitchell to top-edge a bouncer to Archer on the square leg boundary for 73 before Woakes found Southee’s edge to give Pope that overdue maiden keeper’s catch. Archer added his first wicket of the match, and only his second of an arduous series, when Santner chanced his arm once too often, and one ball later Wagner chipped a Curran full-toss to midwicket.But that rush of breakthroughs proved a double-edged omen for England. By the close, with their innings in serious jeopardy, they might even have missed the ennui of New Zealand’s mid-innings go-slow.

With the series still alive, India might not want to tinker with their playing XI

The Preview by Karthik Krishnaswamy07-Dec-20192:57

Chahal all set to overtake Ashwin 

Big picture

West Indies seldom put all their best T20 stars on the park at the same time, so watching them between world tournaments is often an exercise in fantasy squad building. If this guy weren’t playing Global T20 Moldova, and if that other chap recovers from that knee injury…It’s also the reason why their performances since the 2016 World T20 – 12 wins, 26 losses – and even their more recent form – nine losses in their last ten games – feels less alarming than it looks. Sure, they have been losing a lot of games, but who’s going to bet against them when next year’s T20 World Cup rolls around?West Indies’ display in Hyderabad summed up the above. A line-up packed with power-hitters – but missing three or four other, equally gifted hitters – posted a big total, but their bowlers lost control of the game in dewy conditions, and India won with ease. West Indies lost, but the dormant-superpower narrative remained intact.ALSO READ: Kohli compiles an anger-fuelled masterclassLosses like that might turn into wins if West Indies can assemble their best squad more often, but it can also happen if their bowlers get their act together. India completed their chase of 208 in 18.4 overs, and while that’s 112 balls in theory, they actually got to face 123, thanks to all the wides and no-balls.There will probably be dew in Thiruvananthapuram too, and sweaty palms thanks to the muggy heat, so West Indies’ bowling discipline will once again come under the spotlight.India, meanwhile, have a long-term issue of their own to address – or sidestep, depending on how the toss goes. You probably already know this, but it’s worth reiterating: since the start of 2018, India have a 14-3 record while chasing, which becomes 8-7 when they bat first.They hunted down their biggest-ever T20I target on Friday, and did so with ease, but it’s still not certain that their batsmen know how to approach innings when they don’t have a required rate in mind. Thiruvananthapuram may or may not give us answers to that particular puzzle.

Form guide

India WWWLL (last five completed games, most recent first)
West Indies LLLWLYuzvendra Chahal needs one wicket to become India’s highest wicket-taker in T20Is•BCCI

In the spotlight

Yuzvendra Chahal needs one wicket to go past R Ashwin and become India’s highest wicket-taker in T20Is. The selectors left him out of India’s squads for the tour of the West Indies and the home series against South Africa, in order to try a few new options, but since his return, Chahal has reiterated his value in the shortest format. He bowls the difficult overs, uses his variations intelligently, reads batsmen’s intentions better than most spinners, and picks up key wickets – as he showed by dismissing Shimron Hetmyer and Kieron Pollard in the 18th over in Hyderabad, to help keep West Indies from posting an even bigger total.He took a beating at Virat Kohli’s hands in Hyderabad, and finished with the worst-ever T20I figures by a West Indies bowler, but Kesrick Williams knows that such days are part and parcel of a T20 bowler’s life. West Indies understand the value of his cutters and pace variations – among bowlers from Test-playing teams with a minimum of 20 wickets, he has the fourth-best strike rate of all time – and if the Thiruvananthapuram pitch offers a bit of grip, India might find him a little harder to put away.

Team news

India don’t usually tinker much when series are still alive, which means Manish Pandey, Sanju Samson, Kuldeep Yadav and Mohammed Shami might have to continue waiting their turn.India (probable): 1 Rohit Sharma, 2 KL Rahul, 3 Virat Kohli (capt), 4 Rishabh Pant (wk), 5 Shreyas Iyer, 6 Shivam Dube, 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 Washington Sundar, 9 Deepak Chahar, 10 Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 11 Yuzvendra ChahalNicholas Pooran will most likely return to West Indies’ line-up after serving his four-match ban for ball-tampering, and take the keeping gloves from Denesh Ramdin. Fabian Allen missed the first game with a knee injury, and it’s unclear if he’s recovered enough to play in Thiruvananthapuram.West Indies (probable): 1 Lendl Simmons, 2 Evin Lewis, 3 Brandon King, 4 Shimron Hetmyer, 5 Nicholas Pooran (wk), 6 Kieron Pollard (capt), 7 Jason Holder, 8 Khary Pierre, 9 Kesrick Williams, 10 Sheldon Cottrell, 11 Hayden Walsh

Pitch and conditions

The Greenfield International Stadium has only hosted two international games – an ODI and a rain-affected T20I – and slow turn was a feature of both games. The ground hosted 14 games during the recent Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (India’s domestic T20 tournament), and spinners did well once again, averaging 20.85 and conceding 6.35 runs per over.The weather is likely to be hot and humid, with a slight chance of rain.

Stats and trivia

• Rohit Sharma (2547) and Virat Kohli (2544) are neck-and-neck at the top of the global T20I run charts.
• West Indies don’t have great memories of Thiruvananthapuram. They have played one game here, an ODI in November 2018, which they lost by nine wickets after being bowled out for 104.
• West Indies hit a lot of sixes, but not fours. Among the 12 Test-playing teams, they have the worst balls-per-four ratio (11.40) since the end of the 2016 World T20 – England lead the way at 8.04 – and the third-best balls-per-six ratio (15.85) behind New Zealand (13.96) and Afghanistan (14.64). India sit in the middle of the pack on both counts, with the sixth-best balls-per-six ratio (17.64) and the seventh-best balls-per-four figure (8.63)

A round-up of the Under-19 World Cup matches that took place on January 28, 2020

ESPNcricinfo staff28-Jan-2020
ScorecardSixteen-year old Emannuel Bawa must have had one of the sweetest experiences of his career on Tuesday. To score a century from No. 7 – with the team in deep trouble at 54 for 5 – and for it to end up match-winning too had to make him feel like he was on top of the world.Zimbabwe, at one point, were in very real danger of going down to Canada in Potchefstroom, but their lower-middle order showed great steel. The No. 5 Taurayi Tugwete hit a 50 off 75 balls and even the No. 9 Gareth Chirawu wouldn’t give his wicket away cheaply, cracking 54 unbeaten runs off only 45 deliveries. Bawa, though, was the star of the show, arriving to the crease in the 16th over and remaining unbeaten, with 13 fours and a strike-rate of 110.Canada suffered a similar batting malfunction, slumping to 69 for 5 in the 21st over, but they could find no one to rescue their innings as Chirawu, Sakhumuzi Ndlela and Nkosilathi Nungu picked up two wickets each.Uzzair Shah flicks•ICC via Getty

ScorecardOsama Hassan produced a fine half-century from the lower order for UAE but his 81 off 68 balls did little to prevent defeat in the fourth quarter-final of the plate group in the Under-19 World Cup. Scotland cruised to victory with seven wickets to spare thanks to opener Uzzair Shah’s nearly run-a-ball 71 and wicketkeeper Tomas Mackintosh’s better than run-a-ball 57.UAE began the game in decent position. They were 129 for 3 in the 30th over after being put in to bat, eying up a strong total. But Daniel Cairns’ offspin triggered a middle-overs collapse where they lost four wickets for 35 runs. Hassan continued to fight though, hitting seven fours and a six during the course of his innings and was the last man out in the 49th over.Shah took centre stage after that, helping Scotland wallop 176 runs by the 27th over before he was finally dismissed, by which time the contest was pretty much done.

The hosts took a 109-run lead as Bangladesh struggled for discipline

The Report by Shashank Kishore08-Feb-2020Stumps
Tests turn in one ball. For Bangladesh, that came in the third over after lunch. Just prior to the interval, they had dismissed Azhar Ali. Now, there was a gift for the taking from Babar Azam after he’d played the most un-Babar like shot.A miscue after being lulled by Taijul Islam’s loop and flight. Ebadot Hossain wasn’t alert enough at mid-off; a clumsy run backwards to try and catch magnified his error in judgment even more. The catch went down with Babar on 3. Pakistan would’ve been 104 for 3. It wasn’t to be.Babar went on to make 140 more and carried with him the promise of much more on Sunday, maybe even a maiden Test double. Pakistan ended the day 109 ahead; Asad Shafiq serenely batting on 60. His stand with Babar was worth 137, and with three full days still to go, you could sense where this was headed.It wasn’t just Babar and Shafiq who had fun. Shan Masood continued his Test match rejuvenation by bringing up his third Test century, his second on the trot, to further deflate the visitors. Having seen Abid Ali fall early, slashing to the slips, Masood sussed up the conditions and then made merry once the bowlers lost their sting in the first half hour.Masood sat back and punched off the backfoot through cover and point, the weight transfer allowing him to pierce gaps to perfection. For a batsman who appears to not take too many risks, his half-century off 54 balls, courtesy nine boundaries, was deceptively quick.But he didn’t need to carry on batting in that gear right through, because Babar set shop after that early reprieve, batting in the kind of zone where he put not only the bad balls away but even the good ones. Like the on-drives or the whirring flick shots to length deliveries from outside off to bisect midwicket and mid-on.For Bangladesh, Taijul kept toiling, looking to bowl into the rough created at the other end. But the surface was simply too good: little dust, no cracks, true bounce and little movement. Everything batsmen dream of while looking to set up Tests. Masood was perhaps caught in one such dream soon after getting to his century.Having concentrated long and hard, shelving the free-flowing drives that he superbly played early for the hard grind after passing fifty, he was out driving to a harmless delivery that ought to have been put away. He played down the wrong line, nearly yorked himself by getting into a tangle as the ball snuck through the inside edge to hit the stumps. At that stage, Pakistan were 205 for 3, behind by 28 runs.The wicket came literally out of nowhere, because until a few moments prior to his century, Bangladesh were so switched off that they didn’t even appeal for a ball that Masood nicked to Liton Das, the wicketkeeper, on 86 off Rubel Hossain. So the wicket was another opportunity for Bangladesh to try and crack open the middle order. Instead, they came out after tea and immediately allowed the game to drift by giving Shafiq easy singles that got Babar back on strike.By then, Babar gave the impression that he was toying with the bowling, especially Taijul, hitting wherever he pleased. Take for instance a flighted delivery from Taijul. A length ball outside off, to which he stepped out to negate any turn and then, as if he was simply commanding the ball, using his wrists to flick it between midwicket and mid-on. Or the back-to-back flicks to length balls outside off to the midwicket fence of Abu Jayed.This was a batsman every inch confident of what he was upto, far from the unusually ultra-aggressive self who threatened to hit out and get into trouble early in his innings. It took Babar a while to calm himself down after the reprieve, and for the Rawalpindi faithful who turned up on Saturday, it was worth the wait.In the morning session, Bangladesh struck twice, both gifts to loose shots. Fresh off back-to-back tons in his first two Tests, Abid slashed at one early on, while Azhar fell in similar fashion shortly before lunch. But the 91-run partnership established Pakistan’s early advantage where they proved the biggest threat they faced was their own complacency against a toothless attack. The good passages for Bangladesh were eventually too far and few between, leaving the Test cold and quickly veering towards the prospect of there being only one winner in the Test.

Remember the good old days, when England were truly woeful, but at least the show was able to go on

Andrew Miller16-Mar-2020With the sports world in abeyance due to the COVID-19 pandemic, now’s as good a time as any to reminisce about the good old days, when England were truly woeful, but at least the show was able to go on …Sydney 2013-14Had England been a Norwegian Blue parrot, they would have been eligible for a refund as they staggered into Sydney for the fifth and final Test in January 2014. The tour had shuffled off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisible, and so too had a champion team. Jonathan Trott had flown home after one Test, Graeme Swann retired abruptly after three. Matt Prior’s Achilles tendon was an ex-tendon, and Kevin Pietersen was braced for his final excommunication. The odds were not in their favour. But that wasn’t going to dissuade Australia from indulging in a bit more of their favourite pastime – gleeful and gory overkill. Despite batting twice in the match, they pulled off the neat trick of winning before tea on the third day, thanks to a non-existent second innings that fell off its twig in a mere 31.4 overs. Boyd Rankin made his Test debut after switching allegiance from Ireland, and swiftly wished he hadn’t bothered, while Scott Borthwick was similarly scarred by his own admission to the one-cap-wonder club. Picked for his legbreaks, he’s scarcely dared to roll his arm over since.Melbourne 1990-91There have been worse scorelines in recent Ashes campaigns – hell, England have lost nine of their last ten Tests in Australia – but for sheer, unadulterated incompetence, nothing surpasses their cock-ups on the 1990-91 tour. In the first two Tests they twice squandered leads to be steamrollered in the fourth innings, but if there was a sliver of mitigation in a low-scoring dogfight at Brisbane, then the excuses ran dry for their Boxing Day massacre. It all started so promisingly, with David Gower’s hundred and a heroic 6 for 82 from Angus Fraser, and when Graham Gooch and Wayne Larkins carried England to a lead of 149 with nine wickets standing … well, what could possibly go wrong? Enter Bruce Reid – finally, ominously, fit after years of injury niggles – who began dispatching thunderbolts from his left-arm skyscraping line. England’s next highest score was 8, they lost their last six wickets for three runs. And despite two early wickets hinting that a target of 197 might still be taxing, Mark Taylor and David Boon munched the rest of the chase without breaking sweat. No wonder the Tiger Moths seemed a good idea.Head down for Devon Malcolm as India look set to win•Getty Images

Calcutta 1992-93Where do you start with England’s tour of India in 1992-93? How about the initial squad, a graffiti-tag of bits-and-pieces squiggles that was deemed so vulgar that MCC convened an emergency meeting to debate the omission of two masterpieces, David Gower and Jack Russell? But that was nothing compared to the team for the first Test itself … which featured no fewer than four front-line seamers, but neither of England’s first-choice spinners, John Emburey and Phil Tufnell – Ian Salisbury was pitched in instead after turning a few leggies in the nets. India, by contrast (and you sense they may have had the inside track here…) plumped for two allrounders in Kapil Dev and Manoj Prabhakar, who bowled fewer than ten overs in either innings, and a three-prong spin attack including the young Anil Kumble. England would blame the smog, the trains, the alignment of the planets … and even the local prawns. But, having not toured India since winning there eight years earlier, and having seen them off with ease on home soil in 1990, they simply forgot it might actually be a challenge.Brisbane 1958-59“If there was one regrettable tendency on the part of the players as a whole it was towards complacency … seven years of success on the cricket field had not brought team spirit so much as a belief that, when needed, everything would come right.” Wise words from Bill Bowes in the 1959 Cricketer Spring Annual, after the dismantling of an all-time great England team at the hands of a vengeful Australia. In scenes eerily reminiscent of that 2013-14 meltdown, a team led by Peter May and boasting stars such as Colin Cowdrey, Jim Laker and Fred Trueman were routed 4-0 by Richie Benaud’s resurgent Aussies. The tone was set on the opening day of the series at Brisbane, as England were skittled in two sessions en route to an eight-wicket defeat. There were some righteous gripes about a few bowling actions – Ian Meckiff’s left-arm exocets were particularly disconcerting – but after three Ashes wins in a row, it was the squad’s collective failure to keep their eyes on the ball that cost them dearest.Mike Atherton with Ray Illingworth•Adrian Murrell/Getty Images

Antigua 1997-98For two decades, England had travelled to the Caribbean with hope rather than expectation (and more often than not, not even that). But in the spring of 1998, England sensed a changing of the guard, and after battling unevenly in the previous summer’s Ashes, Mike Atherton was persuaded to stay on as captain and attempt to storm the citadel. For the bulk of the campaign they were brawling – they lost a thriller in Trinidad before winning the rematch a week later (the Sabina Park fiasco also added an extra layer of intrigue). Their initial goal eluded them after a thumping in Guyana, but then their shot at a shared series unravelled with miserable haste too. England folded for 127 on the first day in Antigua before Clayton Lambert and Philo Wallace – less Greenidge and Haynes, more Laurel and Hardy – spanked their side to an impregnable lead with the most unedifying top-order slogging ever witnessed in the Caribbean. Still there was a chance for England to emerge with pride as Nasser Hussain and Graham Thorpe dug in for the draw. But then Thorpe sold his partner a dummy with a single to midwicket, and England spluffed their last seven wickets for 26.Cape Town, 1995-96How to ruin three months of hard yakka in half a session of nonsense. England had battled, and battled, and battled through their first tour of South Africa since Apartheid, never more gamely than in Mike Atherton’s mighty rearguard at Johannesburg. But in the fifth and final Test at Newlands, with the series still stuck at 0-0, their resolve crumbled in farcical circumstances. On a tricky surface, South Africa had scrapped to 171 for 9 in reply to 153, when the frog-in-the-blender Paul Adams came out to join Dave Richardson. His batting technique was no less homespun than his bowling action, and in an hour of wind-up-and-wallop he hauled that lead to an insurmountable 91. Recriminations abounded as they stumbled to a ten-wicket defeat – and heads galore were made to roll by England’s dictatorial supremo Ray Illingworth, whose tour-long disparaging of Devon Malcolm came to a head in the dressing-room after his failure to make the key breakthrough. Robin Smith never played again, despite top-scoring with 66 in the first innings, and even Alec Stewart was put out to pasture at the age of 33, only to be granted a reprieve by injury the following summer. As for that winter, England’s sour mood never recovered. They were slamdunked 6-1 in the subsequent ODIs, before embarking on a World Cup campaign in the subcontinent that, in spite of numerous pretenders to the crown, still has a claim to be the most embarrassing and ill-starred of the lot.Derek Randall is dismissed off Richard Hadlee’s bowling•Getty Images

Christchurch 1983-84It’s safe to assume that England’s tourists enjoyed their time in New Zealand in 1983-84. What they can remember of it, however, is not entirely clear. In between the white-water rafting and newspaper allegations of pot smoking, they somehow failed to turn up for the second Test in Christchurch, where instead a team of cyphers “put up an exhibition,” according to Wisden, “that would have shamed a side in the lower reaches of the County Championship”. Shorn of fast bowlers by injury, England turned to the Surrey seamer, Tony Pigott (in the right place at what turned out to be the wrong time). He postponed his wedding to play his only Test and was part of an inept bowling display in which Richard Hadlee top-scored with 99 from 81 balls. That, however, was England’s high point. In consecutive innings they were routed for 82 and 93 – Hadlee inevitably to the fore with 8 for 44 all told. “I walked in at 47 for 7 for my first innings in Test cricket and thought, ‘Well, this is interesting’,” Pigott later told ESPNcricinfo. That was one word for it.Kingston 2008-09This was a cleansing humiliation – the sort of therapeutic flagellation on a Caribbean island that Hollywood A-listers would pay good money for in the wake of a messy divorce. And that is precisely what English cricket had just put itself through, amid Kevin Pietersen’s and Peter Moores’ contentious uncoupling in the final weeks of 2008. The new captain, Andrew Strauss, and new coach Andy Flower, attempted to heal the wounds of a traumatised squad, only for Jerome Taylor to inflict a whole new world of pain on an inspired afternoon at Sabina Park. There was no warning of what was to come as England began their second innings, 40 minutes before lunch on the fourth morning, with a manageable deficit of 74. But from the moment Alastair Cook edged to slip for a duck, panic seized their every movement. The convenient, and frankly compliant scapegoat, was Ian Bell, whose rancid cut on the stroke of lunch left England 11 for 2 in the tenth over, and ripe for the plucking. Barely two hours later it was all over – 51 all out, Taylor 5 for 11 in nine. West Indies victorious by an innings and 17. Bell would spend the rest of the tour on the margins, learning to toughen up – a spell of purdah that would genuinely transform his career. And similarly, though England were thwarted in their bid to get back into the series, all was forgiven when they reclaimed the Ashes in the summer, and began their march to No. 1 in the world. Who knew that a full body purge could be so good for you?Curtly Ambrose traps Mike Atherton first ball for 0•Getty Images

Port of Spain 1993-94Just so that we’re clear, this is a tribute to English incompetence, rather than an ode to the irresistibility of their (many and varied) conquerors. So while it would be rude to overlook the extraordinary, indefatigable, over-my-dead-body magnificence of Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh, the last true kings of the Caribbean, it would also be out-of-kilter to ignore the accidents, errors and ineptitudes that led to England being routed for 46 all out. It remains their lowest Test total since 1887, and it came in a contest that they had dominated since the very first morning. It would be remiss not to remind Graeme Hick, for instance, of the two crucial chances he spilled at slip off the teenaged Shivnarine Chanderpaul, that effectively doubled England’s target from a docile 100-odd to a daunting 194. Or to remind Mark Ramprakash of his catatonic response to Mike Atherton’s first-ball lbw – when such accidents happen, Test No. 3s tend to rise above them, rather than run themselves out off the first scoring shot of the innings.Adelaide 2006-07Like the battle of Alesia in Asterix and the Chieftain’s Shield, Adelaide was such a traumatic and discombulating rout, most of its witnesses have been in denial ever since. Did it ever happen? Personally, I’m still not convinced. I mean, whoever heard of a team declaring on 551 for 6 after a 300-run stand for the fourth wicket, and losing? What sort of a nonsense scenario allows a side to go into the fifth and final day of a Test match with nine wickets standing and a lead of 97 in the third innings, and still lose? How can a bowler get schooled for figures of 53-9-157-1 in the first innings, then inveigle his way into his opponents’ deepest and most forbidden anxieties second-time round? Ah, well, when that bowler is Shane Warne, and the opponent is England, I guess all bets are off. In successive Warne overs, a moment of tragedy and a moment of farce shredded England’s final-day facade – Andrew Strauss was given out to a stinker of a decision at short leg, before a headless Ian Bell was run out to leave two new batsmen on 0. One of those, Kevin “Warne will never bowl me round my legs” Pietersen, was then bowled round his legs by Warne. The rest was a formality. And as word spread throughout the nation, Adelaide’s CBD ground to a halt as the city’s office-workers trooped across the river to join in the gawping. At least that’s what I thought until I woke up. It was remarkably vivid.

West Indies coach says gesture of solidarity for Black Lives Matter would ‘definitely’ happen

George Dobell22-Jun-2020Phil Simmons has revealed he was the victim of racist abuse while playing league cricket in England and confirmed his West Indies squad will “definitely” register their “solidarity” with the Black Lives Matter movement when the Test series against England begins.As well as playing county cricket – he was a key member of the Leicestershire side which won the County Championship in 1996 – Simmons played in various leagues in England in the 80s and 90s. And while the West Indies head coach said he had not “really encountered that much” racism in the county game during his stints at Durham or Leicestershire, he did confirm he “encountered quite a bit” in one of the leagues.He declined to confirm in which league the abuse occurred, only saying it was “in the north east.””I encountered quite a bit [of racism] up in the leagues,” Simmons said. “In county cricket I haven’t really encountered that much. But I have encountered it in the leagues.ALSO READ: England and West Indies to compete in #raisethebat Test series”It’s not a nice thing to face. Especially in the leagues where you’re by yourself sometimes. It affected my wife when I was up there. It’s not a nice thing.”I played in three or four different leagues. It was one particular league up in the north east.”The return of sport around the globe – not least the Premier League – has been characterised by gestures of support towards the Black Lives Matter movement. While Simmons was unsure exactly what guise his team’s support would take, he was adamant they would “show their unity” and hinted their action would be in conjunction with the England side.”We definitely are thinking about things that we can do to show our solidarity with the movement,” Simmons said. “We definitely have plans to show our unity and our backing to it. The chats with the English are on-going and by the end of this week we’ll see what we can do together.”