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Tuesday, July 15, 2025

Athanaze, Da Silva get into gear for Test battle

by

Sport Desk
374 days ago
20240706
West Indies wicket-keeper Joshua Da Silva...scored an unbeaten half-century (51 not out.

West Indies wicket-keeper Joshua Da Silva...scored an unbeaten half-century (51 not out.

BECK­EN­HAM – Al­ick Athanaze and Joshua Da Sil­va warmed up for high­er in­ten­si­ty bat­tles in the com­ing weeks with un­beat­en half-cen­turies that were the high­lights for West In­dies be­fore the open­ing match on their Tour of Eng­land against the First-Class Coun­ties Se­lect XI end­ed in a draw on Fri­day.

Athanaze was not out on 66 and Da Sil­va was not out on 51 when West In­dies de­clared their sec­ond in­nings on 196 for five at the resched­uled tea break on the rain-spoilt fi­nal day of the three-day match at the Kent Coun­ty Crick­et Ground.

The Coun­ties Se­lect XI were 30 for two in their sec­ond in­nings when stumps were drawn in the match for the fi­nal time af­ter they were set an im­prob­a­ble tar­get of 163 to win in the fi­nal ses­sion of play.

Un­capped pac­er Je­re­mi­ah Louis, who re­placed in­jured Ke­mar Roach in the West In­dies squad for the tour, then got open­er Har­ry Singh caught be­hind for a 12-ball duck, and Jo­hann Layne, a mem­ber of the Crick­et West In­dies Acad­e­my squad re­turn­ing to the Caribbean from their Tour of Ire­land, got Ja­mal Richards caught be­hind for six be­fore the two teams de­cid­ed it was fu­tile to con­tin­ue.

“Bar­ring a bit of ad­verse weath­er, we have man­aged to get a lot of sol­id crick­et played over the last three days, so we are gen­er­al­ly hap­py with what has hap­pened on the tour so far,” West In­dies as­sis­tant coach, Jim­my Adams told CWI Me­dia.

“What we would have want­ed to get from the time spent out in the mid­dle, we have got­ten. The weath­er has been kind to us, we know that it could get a lit­tle bit rough [in Eng­land], but all in all, we are very hap­py with what the weath­er has al­lowed and the fa­cil­i­ties we have been giv­en, and what the guys have been able to pro­duce.”

West In­dies now head to the British cap­i­tal of Lon­don, where they will con­tin­ue prepa­ra­tions ahead of the first Test against hosts Eng­land, start­ing on Wednes­day at the so-called home of the sport, Lord’s.

“I think it is im­por­tant that they [the bats­men] get as much ‘live’ prac­tice as they can in con­di­tions that a lot of them are not fa­mil­iar with,” Adams added.

“I would say that ir­re­spec­tive of any­where they have trav­elled out­side of the Caribbean, a lot of them have not toured Eng­land be­fore – some have – but a lot of the bat­ters haven’t, so [this tour match] was an op­por­tu­ni­ty for them to get as ac­quaint­ed with con­di­tions as pos­si­ble be­fore they run in­to the in­ter­na­tion­al op­po­si­tion, and I think they have done it pret­ty well.”

Ear­li­er, Athanaze and Da Sil­va shared 91 – un­bro­ken – for the sixth wick­et af­ter there was no play be­fore lunch with the vis­i­tors set to con­tin­ue from their overnight to­tal of 57 for two.

Open­er Mikyle Louis made 28 and was one of three wick­ets that the West In­dies lost in the span of half-hour when play start­ed 2-1/2 hours lat­er than sched­uled be­cause of ad­verse weath­er, and they were 105 for five.

But Athanaze led the re­sis­tance for the Caribbean side dur­ing two-and-a-half hours at the crease in which time he struck 11 fours from 99 balls, and Da Sil­va struck half-dozen fours from 69 balls in an hour-and-a-half.

Athanaze reached his 50 from 62 balls when he clipped pac­er Ja­mal Richards through back­ward square leg for a sin­gle.

Da Sil­va ar­rived at the land­mark from 68 balls when he pulled off-spin­ner Farham Ahmed, younger broth­er of Eng­land teenaged leg-spin­ner Re­han Ahmed, through mid-wick­et for his fi­nal bound­ary be­fore the de­c­la­ra­tion came dur­ing the resched­uled tea break.

Adams said the Caribbean side will be look­ing to build on the knowl­edge they gained from the tour match and draw on their ex­pe­ri­ence from this past Jan­u­ary of win­ning a Test in Aus­tralia for the first time in al­most three decades to of­fer a com­pet­i­tive front to Eng­land.

“It’s a re­al­ly good group in terms of their abil­i­ty and their will­ing­ness to learn,” he said. “Some of them went to Aus­tralia a few months back and they showed this ca­pac­i­ty to learn very quick­ly, and I am hop­ing that this con­tin­ues.

“As a coach you can­not ask for more. They work hard, they learn quick­ly, and what we can do is to give them a lit­tle heads up about what to ex­pect both in terms of con­di­tions and knowl­edge about the op­po­si­tion.”

Adams said: “We want to build on it [the win in Aus­tralia]. I can’t speak to what is hap­pen­ing out­side of the team or around, but from a team per­spec­tive, it was a great fil­lip for us. Cer­tain­ly, when you have a young group, you are keen to bed down a lot of things.

“Some of them are ear­ly in their ca­reers, and re­sults like that can help the teach­ing process be­cause it re­in­forces and moves things from the­o­ry to re­al­i­ty. It then means that, maybe, in­stead of hav­ing to teach, you can re­mind be­cause they have been there and noth­ing re­al­ly is a sub­sti­tute for hav­ing been in a bat­tle and come out on the oth­er side in­tact, so hope­ful­ly we can add to that go­ing for­ward.”

The sec­ond Test of the se­ries starts on Ju­ly 18 at Trent Bridge in Not­ting­ham, and the third Test starts on Ju­ly 26 at Edg­bas­ton in Birm­ing­ham.

CMC

Scores:

WEST IN­DIES 339 (Kavem Hodge 112, Al­ick Athanaze 74, Kirk McKen­zie 73, Mikyle Louis 50; Farhan Ahmed 4-48, John Turn­er 4-60) and 196 for five de­clared (Al­ick Athanaze 66 not out, Joshua Da Sil­va 51 not out, Mikyle Louis 28; Son­ny Bak­er 2-49).

FIRST-CLASS COUN­TIES SE­LECT XI 373 for four de­clared (William Lux­ton 112 not out, Hamza Shaikh 84, Tom Prest 53, Har­ry Duke 46 not out, Har­ry Singh 34, Ben McK­in­ney 22) and 30 for two.

Match drawn.


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