Root and Co have a ball as Windies wilt

ENGLAND dominated the woeful West Indies for a third straight day at cricket’s party capital Edgbaston as Joe Root’s men closed in on a series-opening victory under the lights.

West Indies’ rookies yet again struggled to compete with relentless England and the experiment of day-night Test cricket.

But their incompetent batting, to follow their erratic bowling on the first two days, probably had little to do with facing the pink ball and the Birmingham floodlights.

Instead, it was more to do with their inexperience and simply being outplayed by a far superior England team, who forced them to follow-on last night.

The tourists crashed to 168 all out in their first innings in the afternoon, managing to face just 47 overs – not even as many as they would negotiate in a one-day international.

And their total was 75 less than Alastair Cook made in his England knock.

Only dogged No.6 Jermaine Blackwood resisted England with a courageous and punchy 79 not out from just 76 balls despite being hit on the head by a Ben Stokes bouncer. Sadly for him and the West Indies, none of his team-mates could show his skill or ability to stick it out against James Anderson and Co.

Ruthless England asked them to bat again and had restricted the Windies to 76-4 at the tea interval, when they still trailed England’s first innings 514-8 declared by 270 runs.

Opener Kraigg Brathwaite tried to build an innings but fell lbw to Moeen Ali on the stroke of the interval. Roston Chase had nine.

By then, the Windies had managed just 200 runs for the loss of 13 wickets in the day.

The lively Edgbaston crowd, which featured people dressed as Ruud Gullit in Dutch football strips, Dalmatian dogs and show jumping jockeys, made their own fun.

There was just no contest out in the middle and England’s bowlers had it as easy as their batsmen had previously, when Cook plundered a mammoth

243.

Early on, the Windies enjoyed a solid start when reaching 45-1 but the top order disintegrated in a destructive spell of 3-2 in

24 balls.

Kyle Hope deflected a spiteful shorter ball to Stokes in the gully off Anderson for 25. That was 45-2, which became 47-4 when Kieran Powell committed suicide with an ill-advised single to mid-on only to be run out for 20 by Anderson, giving away a hard-earned start.

Then form man Chase, who came to the crease with scores of 81, 50 not out, 110 not out and

60 not out from warm-up games against Essex and Derbyshire, struggled against the pink ball.

He was bowled by Anderson off the inside edge after 11 scoreless deliveries.

Blackwood and Shai Hope then rallied as the next 41 runs were rattled off just six overs in a much-needed counter-attack.

The resistance was brief, though, as Hope tried to force the pace too much and only managed to drag a ball from Toby Roland-Jones on to his stumps for 15.

The rest just crumbled with Anderson finishing with 3-34. It was like a master fine-tuning his skills against amateurs before the main event, with the Australians awaiting him this winter.

The Windies were equally clueless second time around as Powell, Kyle Hope, Shai Hope and Brathwaite’s wickets gave them – No Hope!

Shai was caught by Root of Stokes to give the Durham all-rounder his first wicket of the match after he had taken

0-40 in the first innings.