England hope to get a grip in pink-ball Test
Anderson and Broad should skittle Windies
ENGLAND play their first day-night Test today, with Mark Stoneman having a golden chance to book an Ashes future. Runs in this three-game series — starting with the pink ball against a weak-looking West Indies at Edgbaston — would secure the 30-year-old Surrey opener a place on the plane this winter. Captain Joe Root said: ‘He’s been very good in practice. Mark has gone about his business in a mature way and we’re very excited to see him have a successful game.’ Stoneman replaces the out-of-form Keaton Jennings and will be Alastair Cook’s 12th opening partner since Andrew Strauss retired in 2012. Many of the West Indies stars have stayed at home to cash in on the Caribbean T20 League.
This may be, as England keep insisting, a step into the unknown but what is certain is that the inaugural day-night Test in this country should go the way of so many at this famous old Edgbaston ground and end in a home victory.
Nobody is sure how the pink Duke ball, which is being used in a Test for the first time, will behave or whether the English climate really is conducive to day-night Test cricket, even at a time of year when it will at least get dark during play.
Yet the gap that exists between these teams in English conditions at any time of day and with any colour ball should be so great that England will be disappointed if they fail to win all three Tests — here, headingley and Lord’s.
West indies may have begun the long climb back to respectability now they have the right men in captain Jason holder, coach stuart Law, director of cricket Jimmy Adams and English chief executive Johnny Grave to steady their long sinking ship.
But without the superstars who would rather cash in playing Twenty20 than represent a once proud region, this team look so callow that the series should be a mismatch.
Yes, West indies’ attack could cause problems for England’s fragile top order with the extreme pace of shannon Gabriel and Kemar Roach and the potential of their rising young fast bowling star Alzarri Joseph. Yet their batting contains players barely recognisable outside their own families, let alone the wider cricket community and England’s attack should be licking their lips in anticipation at what lies ahead from 2pm today.
No wonder stuart Broad and Jimmy Anderson have both this week balked at the idea of being rested at some point during this late summer series to keep them fresh for the Ashes this winter.
This should be the time to fill their boots and Broad could easily take the five wickets here he needs to overtake sir ian Botham’s tally of 383, while Anderson should make great inroads into the 13 he needs to reach the magical 500 mark.
The ever- increasing number of English batsmen who have failed to take their Test chances, meanwhile, should look away now as opportunity knocks loudly for Mark stoneman (right), Tom Westley and Dawid Malan.
England really should have had their top order sorted out by now ahead of the big one this winter rather than still have uncertainty over key batting positions at two, three and five. But, as it stands, runs in the next three Tests will cement the trio’s Ashes places even though they would provide no guarantee that they really are the best men to stand up to Mitchell starc and company in Brisbane in November. Timing, of course, is everything and stoneman could well be grateful that he has had to wait before becoming Alastair Cook’s 12th opening partner since the retirement of Andrew strauss and 15th in all. The conspiracy theorists will point to the apparent southern bias in stoneman being ignored for so long while he was scoring runs on the spicy pitches at Durham and now being selected so soon after joining surrey. Yet the delay in the 30-year- old making his debut is more to do with reservations over his ability at the highest level and he is playing now only because haseeb hameed and Keaton Jennings have, for now, fallen away. England will not mind a jot if a late developer with a career average of only 34 proves to have the temperament and character for Test cricket, as Westley seems to have done even if he has not yet fully established himself at No 3. West indies’ party line is that England should underestimate them at their peril and captain Joe Root was keen to guard against complacency when he was asked yesterday if he expected to win comfortably.
‘We’re very confident but we don’t expect anything,’ said Root. ‘i think you’ve got to earn the right to play in Test cricket and that doesn’t change whoever you are up against. You can go in as favourites or massive underdogs but it’s all about how you approach each session.
‘if we keep the mentality we had during the back end of the south Africa series we’ll give ourselves a really good chance of coming out on top.’
if Root is at all worried England will become complacent, he need only remind them of the last time they played a Test against West indies two years ago. Then, against the backdrop of ECB chairman Colin Graves calling them ‘mediocre’, West indies won in Barbados to level a bad-tempered series.
holder yesterday admitted there was friction between the teams then but the absence of Marlon samuels, who could start a fight in an empty room, let alone a cricket field containing Ben stokes, should make relations much better.
The bottom line is that West indies’ greater experience with a pink ball, both in a Test against Pakistan in Abu Dhabi and last weekend against Derbyshire, should really count for nothing. The gulf in class is surely too big.
if it stays dry and the full houses expected for the first three days — 40 per cent of them apparently new to Test cricket — do not have to huddle up in the cold and wet, then England could even have this wrapped up by saturday night.