They had kept at it throughout the morning and afternoon, despite the inhospitable conditions and the odds stacked against them.
As England’s fourth-wicket pair pressed towards a double-century stand and the chances for their side apparently receded, spirits remained high. “Baby don’t worry, ’bout a thing, cause every little thing, gonna be all right…”
Perhaps it was due to Trent Bridge only being half full for this fourth day that the support for West Indies was more visible – certainly more audible.
A clutch had banded together in the lower west terrace of the Radcliffe Road Stand, maroon shirts and funky headpieces, the colours of Dominica, Barbados, St Kitts and Nevis on display. Regular calls of encouragement floated across the ground, with Jason Holder turning on more than one occasion to acknowledge their enthusiasm.
Sometimes, a Test match resembles a tug of war. One team flexes their muscles and pulls the game their way, only for the opposition to dig in with their heels and start inching the rope back towards them.
West Indies may have collapsed in an ungainly heap at the end, but they had made England sweat and strain throughout, at times threatening to pull the contest from their grasp.
Few gave them a chance of competing on level terms after defeat inside seven sessions at Lord’s. Few will say, certainly with hindsight, that West Indies had much of a shot of chasing 385 to win in the fourth innings here.
Kraigg Brathwaite and Mikyle Louis ensured both their batting innings started with a fifty-run stand•Jul 21, 2024•Getty Images
But neither did it look like a done deal for England, as Joe Root looked to chisel out as many extra runs as possible with the tail, Jayden Seales hustling through the crease to the end to claim a deserving four-wicket haul.
The chase began in confident mood, England again denied early success with the new ball. Kraigg Brathwaite had exhorted his players to “find a way” with the bat before the game and he set the tone in the opening over by calmly drilling Chris Woakes through cover point for four.
As Brathwaite cracked along at a run a ball, the West Indies openers put on 50 together for the second time in the match – the first time they had achieved such a feat in England since 1991.
Then came the drinks break, a third of the way through an extended evening session that was theoretically set to see 48 overs bowled. West Indies were 61 without loss and seemingly building a sturdy platform from which to carry the fight into day five. Who knows, on a flat pitch, against an attack playing together for the first time, maybe history could be made?
Few thought they were capable of levelling the series against Australia at the Gabba in January. Few thought they would pull off a 300-plus run-chase against England at Headingley in 2017, a game in which Brathwaite notched 134 and 95 after the tourists had been pancaked at in the first Test.
But the naysayers, it turns out, had this one right. The reversal was as swift and brutal as it is possible to be in cricket, where three-and-a-half days of graft can be rendered futile in 23.1 overs of spiralling madness. A punch to the gut just as West Indies fans might have been daring to dream.
Brathwaite said afterwards that disappointment was the overriding emotion. “But the main thing is to learn from it,2 he said. “It’s gone, it’s history, we can’t bring it back. Test cricket will always bring challenges.
There were positives in the game we can speak about and it’s important that we just learn, learn from different scenarios, different situations in a Test match. Because with 240-odd runs remaining, potentially if we had six/seven wickets in hand on day five, you can think about these things and say we’re not far away. But it’s important to learn.”
A Test that had seen West Indies seemingly take a great leap forward with their batting was summed up by one cruel juxtaposition. While the first-innings 457 at Trent Bridge, underpinned by Kavem Hodge’s maiden century, was their highest Test total since 2014, the second-innings implosion marked the first time they had been bowled out in a session since 2013.
For Brathwaite, the urge was to make building blocks from the rubble. The next few months amount to a rare period of concentrated cricket for his side, with a third Test against England to come ahead of visits to the Caribbean by South Africa and Bangladesh.
Joshua Da Silva and Shamar Joseph added valuable runs for the tenth wicket•Jul 20, 2024•AFP/Getty Images
“The big positive was our first innings, scoring 400 runs was great,” Brathwaite said. “A guy scoring his maiden hundred as well, that was good. I think with the ball we weren’t as good as we were supposed to be in the first innings. We dropped a few chances, which will happen, but I think we need to be a lot more disciplined. We went both sides of the pitch a little too much, too easy at times. That’s one thing we’ve got to get better at. They made 100-120 too many first innings, especially if we caught better.
“The more you play, the more you’re in these type of pressure situations in international cricket, once you’re learning and thinking about how to get better, it can only be beneficial for us. The two defeats are gone but we still have five Tests matches remaining for this year. So we keep learning and by the end of the year we’ll be better off, once we have that correct mindset.”
The problem for West Indies is that the learning curve is so steep. With the Richards-Botham Trophy back in English hands, there is only pride (and World Test Championship points) to play for at Edgbaston next week.
But as those fans in the Radcliffe lower would tell you, pride is no small thing. Time to get up, stand up, and give them something to sing about once again. (ESPNcricinfo)
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