Anderson’s gutsy show fails to save sad England
Jimmy Anderson ran himself into the Kensington oval dirt here last night in a vain attempt to stop england’s hold on this series and quite possibly Peter moores’ grip on his job being fatally loosened by West indies. Anderson had taken six wickets on an extraordinary second day of this final Test when 18 batsmen fell but he could do nothing to stop West indies claiming a famous victory on the third at a ground they once considered a fortress. What an extraordinary, shortened match this has been and what a damaging defeat this is for an england team who were told they could not dare lose here. it was Colin Graves, the new ECB chairman, who effectively put coach moores and his team on notice by saying there would be an ‘inquiry’ if england did not beat a ‘mediocre’ West indies side ranked as low as eighth in the world. And Graves was here at the Kensington oval yesterday to see that same West indies show an application and fight long missing from their cricket to leave england contemplating a setback almost as great as their woeful World Cup. england looked like they would get out of jail when they reduced West indies to 80 for four chasing 192 to square this series against all the odds after losing the second Test in Grenada and then a big toss here. yet West indies found an unlikely pair for a crisis as darren Bravo and Jermaine Blackwood, two batsmen who do not usually put a premium on their wickets, led them almost to the finishing line under the Bridgetown floodlights. When Bravo finally fell for 82 after a partnership of 108 with Blackwood, just four runs were needed by West indies and all the fight had long since been taken out of england. england will look back at two sub-standard batting performances which gave Anderson and their attack far too little to play with here. And they will also rue the fact that moeen Ali, such a key figure in the 3-1 success against india last summer, could not take advantage of a pitch with turn and bounce that should have been made for him. That left Anderson fighting a lone battle and flogging himself into the ground along with england’s other seamers, but they could not penetrate the blades of Bravo and Blackwood in front of huge english support. england are expected to appoint Andrew strauss as director of cricket possibly as soon as next week and his first task will be to carry out the inquiry Graves has demanded and then either back or sack the unfortunate moores.
THIRD TEST MATCH. BRIDGETOWN ENGLAND 257 (A N Cook 105, M M Ali 58) & 123; WEST INDIES 189 (J Blackwood 85, J M Anderson 6-42) & 194-5 (D M Bravo 82). West Indies beat England by 5 wkts.