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ENG v WI 2024, ENG vs WI 2nd Test Match Report, July 18 – 22, 2024


Lunch West Indies 89 for 3 (Brathwaite 48, Bashir 2-30) trail England 416 (Pope 121, Duckett 71, Stokes 69) by 327 runs

Mark Wood’s searing four-over spell lit up Trent Bridge and kept West Indies in check on the second morning of the second Test.

Openers Kraigg Brathwaite and Mikyle Louis weathered the onslaught and after the first hour, West Indies were 48 without loss. But wickets to Shoaib Bashir and Gus Atkinson had them 89 for 3 at lunch, trailing England’s first-innings 416 by 327 runs. Alick Athanaze was not out 5 and Kavem Hodge on 1.

Wood came on in the 10th over and managed to produce some swing, which had been non-existent to that point on Friday. But it was his unbridled pace that had everyone transfixed as he twice nudged the 96mph mark and hit 95 twice more in the over.

Wood’s second over was equally rapid, clocked at 94mph five times and 95 once, with testing lines as he twice beat Kraigg Brathwaite’s outside edge.

The Trent Bridge crowd gasped in unison as the scoreboard flashed up the speed of Wood’s fifth delivery in his third over – a staggering 97.1mph. That was understandably a maiden and after three overs, his figures read 3-1-5-0.

Brathwaite managed to find the boundary, guiding the ball fine off his ribs, in Wood’s fourth over, which still contained some lightning speed.

Wood went unrewarded but Bashir had arrived with his off-spin in the 11th over and it was he who made the breakthrough in the 15th, shortly after the drinks break, as Harry Brook took a nerveless catch running a long way to his right and back from mid-on to remove Louis for 21. It was Bashir’s first Test wicket from two matches at home after not bowling in the first game of this series at Lord’s.

Bashir could have had his second in his next over when he rapped Kirk McKenzie – on nought at the time – on the pad and appealed but the umpire was unmoved, as were England who didn’t seem interested in deferring to the DRS, although replays later showed the ball would have hit the top of leg stump.

Gus Atkinson returned for his second spell to replace Wood and he soon removed Brathwaite within a stroke of his half-century trying to turn a short, straight delivery down the leg side but looping it off the shoulder of the bat straight to Ollie Pope at short leg.

Bashir took his second wicket shortly before lunch, McKenzie serving up a simple catch to Ben Stokes at mid-on.

Valkerie Baynes is a general editor, women’s cricket, at ESPNcricinfo

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