NOT­TING­HAM, Eng­land – A fab­u­lous maid­en Test hun­dred from Kavem Hodge and his mon­u­men­tal fourth wick­et stand with fel­low Do­mini­can Al­ick Athanaze turned the tide for West In­dies and had them trail­ing hosts Eng­land by on­ly 65 in the sec­ond Test of the Richards-Both­am Tro­phy Se­ries on Fri­day.

Hodge took on the Eng­lish pac­ers in a won­der­ful dis­play of courage, and his mem­o­rable 120 en­abled the Caribbean side to reach 351 for five, re­ply­ing to the home team’s first in­nings to­tal of 416, at the close on the sec­ond day of the match at Trent Bridge.

The 31-year-old Wind­ward Is­lands Vol­ca­noes bats­man, play­ing in on­ly his third Test, reached the mile­stone from 143 balls when he drove Eng­land cap­tain and fast-medi­um bowler Ben Stokes firm­ly through mid-off for his 17th four and cel­e­brat­ed with a loud yelp and a leap in the air.

The on­ly blem­ish came when Hodge, on 16, was dropped at first slip by Joe Root in the sec­ond over fol­low­ing the af­ter­noon drinks break from Mark Wood, the Eng­land tear­away fast bowler, who al­so struck Athanaze on the hel­met when the left-han­der, on 48, mis­judged the length and the bounce of a sear­ing de­liv­ery.

“It was amaz­ing, and it felt good con­tribut­ing to the team ef­fort,” Hodge said in a TV in­ter­view af­ter play end­ed. “Com­ing off the first Test where we did not do so well, it was re­al­ly im­por­tant that we put our heads down.

“Ob­vi­ous­ly, tak­ing some in­fo from the Eng­land first in­nings, it was re­al­ly im­por­tant that we made good use of a bat­ting track.”

He added: “[The dress­ing room] was a dif­fi­cult place af­ter the first Test, but to be fair, I per­son­al­ly felt that I was too ag­gres­sive, and I could have giv­en my­self a lot more time. Com­ing off the prac­tice game, in which I got a hun­dred, it was im­por­tant that I took up the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

“Com­ing here and see­ing how good the pitch was, it was very im­por­tant for me to dou­ble down and get back in­to my process.”

He and Athanaze be­gan a sal­vage op­er­a­tion for West In­dies that start­ed about 15 min­utes be­fore lunch when the vis­i­tors ap­peared set to en­ter their usu­al down­ward spi­ral – but the two Na­ture Is­landers added 175 for fourth wick­et that sucked the sting out of the Eng­land at­tack.

Athanaze, 25, the lead­ing scor­er in 2019 ICC Men’s Un­der-19 Crick­et World Cup in South Africa, made 82, West In­dies cap­tain Kraigg Brath­waite sup­port­ed with 48, Joshua Da Sil­va was not out on 32, Ja­son Hold­er was not out on 23, and open­er Mikyle Louis got 21.

It was a pow­er­ful re­sponse from the Caribbean side to the wide­spread crit­i­cism af­ter their bat­ting hor­ror show in the first Test at Lord’s, where they failed to pass 150 or bat 90 overs in to­tal in their two in­nings and were beat­en in­side three days by an in­nings and 114 runs to trail 1-0 in the three-match se­ries.

“Bat­ting through the tough pe­ri­ods,” Hodge said, pleased him most about this hun­dred. “The part­ner­ship with Al­ick and I, fac­ing Mark Wood, it’s not every day you face a guy that bowls every sin­gle ball over 90 miles an hour.

“It was re­al­ly im­por­tant that we bat­ted through that pe­ri­od be­cause it would have been dif­fi­cult for a next bats­man to come in and try to get start­ed. We had the mo­men­tum, so it was re­al­ly pleas­ing that we got through that tough pe­ri­od and pushed on fur­ther.”

Ear­li­er, care­less bat­ting in the fi­nal hour be­fore lunch un­did the ap­pli­ca­tion that Brath­waite and Louis had put in­to the first hour of play to come through un­scathed.

The two open­ers en­dured a test­ing first hour from the Eng­land bowlers, but they ab­sorbed the pres­sure – in­clud­ing a fiery spell from Wood, whose quick­est de­liv­ery dur­ing the pe­ri­od was clocked at 97.1 miles an hour.

Nei­ther the pitch nor over­head con­di­tions pre­sent­ed any trou­ble, and the Eng­land bowlers sim­ply bowled with dis­ci­pline and con­tin­ued to plug away be­fore the two open­ers were guilty of soft dis­missals af­ter putting on 53 for the first wick­et.

Louis was caught in­side the long-on bound­ary off lanky off-spin­ner Shoaib Bashir in the first over when he mis­cued an ill-ad­vised slog-sweep, and Brath­waite was caught at short leg tame­ly fend­ing away a short ball from pac­er Gus Atkin­son.

Kirk McKen­zie de­fied the Eng­land bowlers for al­most three quar­ters-of-an-hour for 11, but he then chipped a de­liv­ery of no great mer­it from Bashir to mid-on and was caught about 15 min­utes be­fore lunch, which ar­rived with West In­dies 89 for three.

Af­ter the in­ter­val, Athanaze and Hodge changed the com­plex­ion of the match with their de­fi­ance, bat­ting through the en­tire pe­ri­od be­tween lunch and tea.

They got to the half-cen­tu­ry mark with­in close prox­im­i­ty of each oth­er – Athanaze, play­ing in his fifth Test, got there from 67 balls when he pulled Atkin­son through square leg for a deuce, and Hodge ar­rived from 85 balls when he steered the same bowler through the slips for his eighth four.

Athanaze drove beau­ti­ful­ly – most­ly through the off-side – that en­abled him to col­lect most of his 10 fours and he slog-swept Bashir con­fi­dent­ly for his on­ly six to “cow cor­ner”, while Hodge played a suc­ces­sion of hooks and pulls for most of his 19 fours.

Af­ter tak­ing West In­dies to 212 for three at tea, Athanaze fell when he was caught at gul­ly off Stokes, dri­ving loose­ly at a de­liv­ery an­gled across him, and Hodge was lbw to pac­er Chris Woakes late in the day, play­ing back and across.

Hold­er looked dis­in­ter­est­ed and sur­vived a pe­ri­od of tor­ment from Wood, which end­ed when the Eng­land fast bowler limped off the field with a leg in­jury, but Da Sil­va played with a bit more in­tent and has so far struck sev­en fours, and they bat­tled through the last 40 min­utes to put on 46 – un­bro­ken – for the sixth wick­et to cap a strong ri­poste from the vis­i­tors.

Sum­merise Scores

ENG­LAND 416 (Ol­lie Pope 121, Ben Duck­ett 71, Ben Stokes 69, Chris Woakes 37, Har­ry Brook 36, Jamie Smith 36; Alzarri Joseph 3-98, Kavem Hodge 2-44, Kevin Sin­clair 2-73, Jay­den Seales 2-90).

WEST IN­DIES 351 for five (Kavem Hodge 120, Al­ick Athanaze 82, Kraigg Brath­waite 48, Joshua Da Sil­va 32 not out, Ja­son Hold­er 23 not out, Mikyle Louis 21; Shoaib Bashir 2-100).

Po­si­tion: West In­dies trail by 65 with five first in­nings wick­ets stand­ing.

Um­pires: Adri­an Hold­stock (South Africa), Rod Tuck­er (Aus­tralia).

TV um­pire: Nitin Menon (In­dia).

Match ref­er­ee: Jav­a­gal Sri­nath (In­dia).

Re­serve um­pire: Alex Wharf.

(CMC)