JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Monday, August 11, 2025

Bell Rings Out as West Indies toil in opener

by

20150414

NORTH SOUND–Ian Bell hit an im­pe­ri­ous cen­tu­ry as Eng­land over­came ear­ly West In­di­an pres­sure to take con­trol on day one of the first Test in An­tigua.Bell fell for a an au­thor­i­ta­tive 143 in the penul­ti­mate over but his 22nd Test hun­dred pro­vid­ed the back­bone in Eng­land's 341 for five.The tourists had threat­ened to col­lapse in the morn­ing, slump­ing to 34 for three af­ter Jonathan Trott, Alas­tair Cook and Gary Bal­lance all de­part­ed ear­ly but Bell found a will­ing ac­com­plice in Joe Root, as the pair added 177 for the fourth wick­et.

Root's dis­missal opened a door for the West In­dies but re­turn­ing all­rounder Ben Stokes slammed it shut em­phat­i­cal­ly, rac­ing to 71 not out in 80 balls as the hosts crum­bled in the last hour.Bell's ex­it, af­ter 256 de­liv­er­ies, 20 fours and a six, of­fered some so­lace to the hosts but with Stokes flay­ing the sec­ond new ball to all parts the cel­e­bra­tions were mut­ed.De­nesh Ramdin's de­ci­sion to in­sert Eng­land looked brave but quick­ly paid div­i­dends.

There was an in­aus­pi­cious start from the new open­ing part­ner­ship of Cook and Trott, the lat­ter re­stored to the side 18 months af­ter leav­ing the 2013/14 with a ca­reer-threat­en­ing bout of sit­u­a­tion­al anx­i­ety.His re­call, ahead of York­shire's Adam Lyth, last­ed just three Jerome Tay­lor balls, the last of which sailed to slip off the out­side edge.Cook was for­tu­nate to see a nick of his own fall short in the next over but he still man­aged just 11.

With­out a Test hun­dred in al­most two years, he gave a brief re­minder of his class when he eased Ke­mar Roach through the cov­ers for four but the bowler ex­act­ed swift re­venge.Three balls lat­er he lo­cat­ed a gap be­tween bat and pad, part­ing the Eng­land cap­tain's stumps be­fore wheel­ing away in cel­e­bra­tion.It was a messy dis­missal for the skip­per, whose search for a ma­jor score con­tin­ues.

Bal­lance is al­so strug­gling, ap­par­ent­ly laid low by a mu­tu­al­ly un­help­ful stint in the one-day side.The sure-foot­ed bats­man who scored three Test cen­turies last sum­mer has be­come in­creas­ing­ly ten­ta­tive and here scraped ten runs in 46 balls.He was clear­ly frus­trat­ed at his slow progress, throw­ing his arms a wider de­liv­ery from Ja­son Hold­er and hand­ing Bra­vo his sec­ond catch of the day.

The hosts were fir­ing but soon hit a road­block in Bell and Root.The for­mer took 20 balls to get off the mark, but did so with a sweet­ly struck cov­er dri­ve.

At lunch Eng­land were 49 for three but the af­ter­noon ses­sion was de­ci­sive­ly theirs, con­tain­ing 118 runs and no fur­ther wick­ets.Bell was leav­ing ju­di­cious­ly and looked in full con­trol when hit­ting square of the wick­et.Root, mean­while, picked Sulie­man Benn as the weak link in the at­tack.The spin­ner man­aged to beat the bat a cou­ple of times in the morn­ing ses­sion but too of­ten he was guilty of miss­ing his length.

In the 33rd over, Tay­lor's ninth, Bell saw a thick edge race to the third man bound­ary–a moral vic­to­ry for the pace­man but four runs for Eng­land's vice-cap­tain.The duo brought up the fifty part­ner­ship in ex­act­ly 100 balls and Bell's own half-cen­tu­ry fol­lowed, Benn drop­ping short again and get­ting whipped through mid-wick­et.Root reached 50 with an ef­fort­less punch down the ground from Hold­er and when Ramdin asked Roach and Tay­lor to re­turn to the at­tack, they were con­sid­er­ably less men­ac­ing.

Ramdin turned to the gen­tle spin of Mar­lon Samuels af­ter tea, who had Root dropped by Benn on 71.Samuels' head dropped as his next over went for 13, in­clud­ing a steepling six from Bell over long-off.Root added 12 more be­fore his num­ber was up, drag­ging the ball in­to his stumps af­ter Tay­lor found a hint of ex­tra bounce out­side off.

Bell was play­ing with greater con­trol and moved through the nineties me­thod­i­cal­ly while new man Ben Stokes dashed to 20 at al­most a run per ball.Bell's hun­dred came from a rare lapse, Samuels find­ing the out­side edge on­ly to see the tra­jec­to­ry wrong­foot Bra­vo at slip.Stokes man­aged to steal the lime­light in the fi­nal hour, go­ing af­ter the tir­ing bowlers mer­ci­less­ly.

He played with ag­gres­sion and in­tent, thriv­ing on an end­less sup­ply of mod­est short bowl­ing.Stokes trans­formed a good day in­to a su­perb one for his side, pep­per­ing the bound­ary ropes be­fore Bell was un­done by a gem from Roach.

Score­board

West In­dies vs Eng­land

ENG­LAND 1st Inns

A Cook b Roach 11

J Trott c Bra­vo b Tay­lor 0

G Bal­lance c Bra­vo b Hold­er 10

I Bell c wkp Ramdin b Roach 143

J Root b Tay­lor 83

B Stokes not out 71

J Tred­well not out 0

Ex­tras (b7, lb3, w7, nb6) 23

TO­TAL (5 wk­ts, 90 overs) 341

Fall of wick­ets: 1-1 (Trott), 2-22 (Cook), 3-34 (Bal­lance), 4-211 (Root), 5-341 (Bell)

Bowl­ing: Tay­lor 15-2-79-2 (w1, nb1), Roach 21-4-66-2 (w2, nb3), Hold­er 18-7-55-1 (nb2), Benn 26-3-85-0, Samuels 10-0-46-0.

WEST IN­DIES: D Smith, K Brath­waite, DM Bra­vo, M Samuels, J Black­wood, S Chan­der­paul, +D Ramdin, J Hold­er, J Tay­lor, K Roach, S Benn.

Toss: West In­dies.

Um­pires: Bil­ly Bow­den, Steve Davis; TV � Bruce Ox­en­ford.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored