WI Eng T4 Day 1: WI As Flat As The Pitch In Barbados

Welcome to the landed of the fleet footed and the flattened. Such seemed the somber greeting that West Indies have given England in Bridgetown, Barbados as the England skipper regaled at the opportunity.
What can make a pitch looked flatter than it is? Poor fielding and costly let off. And West Indies were guilty of plenty of that. At least five reasonable chances went wasted as England piled on a phenomenal first day, especially given the situation they are in – 1-0 down in the series. Catches teams can ill afford at the international level, once West Indies showed how easily they could slip into mediocrity after such a stupendous start to the series with the win in Jamaica in the first Test.
The pitch played true as did the England openers. Skipper Andrew Strauss is in a healthy vein, at least with the bat. After making a century in the third Test at the ARG (Antigua Recreation Ground), he was at it once again on this flat bed. Count on the skipper to give his team the best possible start.
Keeping him company was the other south paw in the opening team – Alastair Cook. While Cook has been making runs, they have come rather painfully and at times, made him look more scratchy than he would like to come across. But that he is determined, despite the technical faults that former England captains keep pointing to, is apparent. Today was no different.
The openers, who nearly carried their innings through the day, though were helped immensely by an uninspired bowling attack by the West Indies as also from some rather bizarre fielding tactics that Chris Gayle refused to amend despite the costly misses repeatedly. With the first slip fielder positioned wider than the orthodox position, three chances that would have been regulation catches for the first slipper went a-begging. The trend continued through the day.

Andrew Strauss looked good for a double century. And perhaps had the West Indies slipped up, he may have made it. But Darren Powell, who predicted that the hosts would win the series 3-0, was himself feeling under the weather as far as his confidence was concerned. Strauss’ wicket then should have changed matters in that regard. A toe crushing yorker that Strauss failed to block saw the England captain fall over having lost his balance while getting out of the way of the deadly delivery only to hear the ball crash into his stumps.
But that was well after Strauss made 142 telling runs, and negotiated the first two sessions of the fourth Test without alarm. Alastair Cook though wallowed in the nervous nineties long enough to cause his own downfall. Stranded on ninety-four would best describe Cook’s predicament. Perhaps Cook felt out of water without the calmness and coolness of his more fluent skipper after the 229 run opening stand and felt five overs of his skipper.
Owais Shah, who replaced Ian Bell in the last Test, was the only other wicket to fall as England ended the day commandingly so on 303 for three, with Kevin Pietersen and Paul Collingwood looking quite comfortable, especially after the former also rejoiced his bit of luck being dropped early in his innings. If these two batsmen could pose another imposing partnership, they would certainly make Ravi Bopara’s life easy, having replaced Andrew Flintoff. West Indies have only themselves to rue over what may have been.

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