Devil is in the detail and Windies captain Holder got it wrong

The way the fourth day drifted away from West Indies was a ruthless lesson in the demands of Test cricket. You can be on top for three days — then you take your foot off the gas and suddenly you’re chasing the game.

The improvement after their hammering at edgbaston has been remarkable. No one gave them a hope. Instead, they’ve given england a scare.

But they have not been able to sustain their disciplines across a whole game. It’s a familiar problem and it’s why they haven’t won an away series against a side other than Bangladesh or Zimbabwe for more than 20 years.

Part of the reason West Indies are Twenty20 world champions is because that’s the format their star cricketers play. But it’s no coincidence that 20- over cricket makes fewer demands, both physical and mental.

The beauty of Test cricket is that it pushes you across five days. One bad session and you’re in trouble — especially against a side like england.

Take West Indies’ fielding. At headingley, you have to take your catches in the cordon, because the ball moves around, but six of the seven chances they have missed here have been behind the wicket. If they had held their catches, West Indies would probably have won already.

Jason holder has had a really good game as captain, but even he showed some mental fatigue and started to make some odd decisions.

When you’ve put in so much hard work to take seven england wickets, and the lead is only 188, why open the bowling after tea with Kraigg Brathwaite?

I understand that holder wanted Devendra Bishoo to change ends, but why not just give an over to Roston Chase, his firstchoice spinner?

holder made a bit of a mistake at the start of the day, too, by giving Shannon Gabriel and Kemar Roach five overs each, which meant they were tired when the second new ball became available before lunch.

If he’d held one of them back, he could have two cracks with the new ball — one before the break, one after it. Attention to detail is crucial at this level of the game.

I also felt they bowled too defensively on Sunday, especially Chase, who hid the ball outside off stump to england’s left-handers.

It meant he had tidy figures, but also meant the seamers had to do a lot of work at the other end. england were happy just to sit in and put overs in the West Indies bowlers’ legs.

As a result, Gabriel was all over the place when the second new ball was finally taken, and Roach wasn’t at his best either. Needless to say, fitness is another important consideration over five days.

It could be argued that Bishoo was denied the wicket of Moeen Ali on 32 (he went on to get 84) because of a no- ball, but a leg- spinner shouldn’t be getting that close to the line anyway.

Incidentally, the umpires are getting into a muddle over these no-balls. We saw on Sunday how Gabriel was given the benefit of the doubt after bowling Mark Stoneman, despite being very tight to the line.

But because umpire Ravi deemed Bishoo to have overstepped, there was no recourse to checking the front foot.

Umpires need to get back to looking at the front foot, not relying on the technology to bail them out if they think it’s close.