Home Tour Diaries Granada Test versus West Indies

Granada Test versus West Indies

by Five0

Chilling Out: Monday to Wednesday 21 – 23 March

The Barbados Test was not the best advert for Test cricket. Dead pitches don’t make for good cricket. I have been there with Steve, my friend from Cornwall. We left Barbados the day after it finished hoping for better. Steve went on to St Lucia for a few days. He flies into Grenada on Thursday morning and will come straight to the ground.  I got out at Grenada. Even just flying over the island coming in to land it was clear that Grenada is much less well developed place than Barbados. I like it for that. Fewer hotels line the beaches. St George’s is a seaport that doesn’t seem to have changed much for the last hundred years.

Steve has booked us apartments in a motel quaintly named Cool Running Apartments on Dusty Highway in a township called True Blue. Says it all, really, doesn’t it? It’s basic but it’ll do. Ramesh who runs it is very amenable and directs me to a Mall which is a bus ride away where I get myself a Digicel sim card and stock up with food for our breakfasts.

It’s not immediately obvious where the beaches, bars and restaurants are around here. I ask a guy at the Mall who says ‘Chublu. That’s where  the beach is and there are bars there.’ Chublu … So when I set out in the evening I asked the porter at the gate of Coll Running Apartments how I get to Chublu. He looks at me a moment and then says ‘You mean True Blue?’ Of course. Why didn’t I think of that?

I walked a mile or so to see the beach at True Blue Bay. Not much I have to say and only one rather lacklustre bar where the lighting was poor so I couldn’t read very well. I set off into True Blue itself which was much busier. It’s home to St George’s University which has a very impressive campus of new Disney-like blocks which I took to be halls of residence. From the young people I passed on the way many of the students seem to be American. I suppose it’s a way of earning foreign currency. I had of bottle of beer at two or three bars till I found a very nice Lebanese where the proprietress sat in a corner smoking on a hookah.

On Tuesday I had a delightfully relaxing day on my own. I spent the morning catching up on emails and writing the Barbados blog and then found an uncrowded beach with a bar where I was able to leave my bag safely while I went for a dip in the warm Caribbean … so nice. I took the  bus part of the way and it’s a 15 minute walk from there. In the evening I walked to True Blue for a few quiet beers and read my  book. That and the Lebanese were to become my go to places.

DAY 1 Thursday 24 March: Calypso Collapso … or not quite

Granada is more relaxed about Covid than Barbados. On the buses wearing a mask is optional. I do it mainly because I want to stay safe for my return trip via Toronto where I am stopping off for 5 days but I do feel a bit of a pillock. Whereas at Barbados there was a big palaver of showing your passport and Covid pass before they’d let you in to the ground here it was your ticket and a cursory glance in your bag. In Barbados they were after your fags, here they are more concerned that any bottles of water you may be bringing in are from Blue Waters, one of the sponsors. They make you tear the labels off if they’re not.

I’d had a long tedious flight to Barbados via Toronto which included a 17 hour overnight stopover. So I had plenty of time to read. Peter, with whom I had been to Grenada for the previous Test here in 2015, had lent me a fascinating book called Hitting Against The Spin by Nathan Leamon and Ben Jones, two cricket analysts for English cricket. They use the amazing amount of data that is now available, a lot of it from CricViz, to dissect topics like why so many opening batsmen are lefthanded or why the reverse sweep has become such a good option. One of the issues they discuss is whether the prevailing view throughout the history of Test cricket that if you win the toss you bat is valid. They show for example that in India in the 93 Tests played there in this century  86 of the captains who won the toss batted first. And yet 46% of them lost as opposed to the 34% who won! It’s a great read and I recommend it highly. The reason for this digression is that Braithwaite won the toss and decided to bowl. Leamon and Jones don’t tell us if that is a good bet in the West Indies but I thought about them when Braithwaite’s  decision was announced.

The Grenada National Cricket Stadium was built in 2000 with funds from China – Belt and Road obviously extends to the Caribbean. It is the ugliest and most functional stadium I’ve been to, and that includes Brisbane. It concedes nothing to aesthetics. It’s painted in the same pink and blue throughout. At the D’arbeau End which I look at from the Members Pavillion the design might have been taken from a prison block template.  On the other hand all this is relieved by its beautiful setting. Brightly coloured houses nestle in on the wooded hillside that rises high behind the ground. In the sunshine there are worse places to be.

Shortly before play started I got this message from Steve: ‘I’ve just missed the flight got stuck in traffic for an hour and a half.’ ‘Oh fuck … what now?’ ‘I’m on skyscanner trying to find a route via somewhere else as the next flight is a week today from here.’

It soon became apparent that Brathwaite’s decision to bowl was a good one. It was a spicy pitch with a bit of variable bounce which the England batsmen couldn’t deal with. There was also some excellent accurate bowling particularly from Kyle Mayers the medium pace all-rounder who started the rot by having Crawley caught by Braithwaite for 7. 23-1. This began a collapse of epic proportions. Mayers had Root caught behind for a duck and had the amazing figures of 5 overs, 5 maidens and 2 wickets.

Steve [11:16 am]: ‘I don’t think I will be able to get to Grenada at all, the only flight I can get takes 30 hours and goes via JFK. Still looking at different websites.’

By lunchtime Lawrence had gone and we were 47-3, Lees stalwart with 26 of 80 balls. When Overton went in the middle of the afternoon session with the score on 90-8 it left Woakes and Leach at the crease with only Mahmood to come. They stuck it out till tea with the score on a miserable 114-8.

Steve [14:17]: ‘I’m just going to the other airport to see if I can charter a plane, it’s 3000ec [£850] if anyone is prepared to do the trip I’m hoping one of the pilots might be there from Sandals.’ [Steve once worked for Sandals.]

After tea we were entertained to another of Jack Leach’s great rear guard actions to go with his 92 at Lords against Ireland and the greatest 1 not out ever to help Stokes get us over the line in the 2019 Ashes at Headingley. For those of us who see him at Somerset this is no surprise. He’s a modest guy who knows his limitations and rarely tries anything flamboyant and he has an excellent defence. All those qualities were on show today. Two balls after the tea interval Woakes was bowled by Seales and it was up to Leach and Mahmood in his first ever innings for England to prevent an ignominious innings score. It was a wonderful session and just shows how fantastic Test cricket is. Apparently when Mahmood came in he said to Leach, ‘Those cheeky fuckers have got their whites on!’

Steve [16:28] ‘There’s a guy coming at 6 who may do it he’s just left Antigua but they aren’t sure about his hours till he gets back.’

May be the ball had gone a bit soft by this stage but the 50 partnership came up shortly before the new ball by which time Mahmood was getting quite expansive. A four off the first over with the new ball took him past his previous highest first-class innings. At the start of the last over he was on 45. By this time the light was fading so Braithwaite had brought his spinners on. 50 was clearly in Mahmood’s sights. He cracked a four off Blackwood and tried the same to the next ball only to drag it on to his stumps, missing his 50 by one run. All out for 204 which was a whole 90 runs better than it had been when they started. It was a brilliant partnership and just shows how fantastic Test cricket can be. Obviously it’s not enough but if England can use the ball as well as the West Indies have there could be a game on.

Steve [18:35] ‘He can’t do it today he said he might be able to do it tomorrow but he can’t promise so I guess it’s just hang around here and wait and see.’ He then proceeded to WhatsApp me all my tickets for the rest of the Test which I took to be rather pessimistic!

DAY 2 Friday 25 March: Déjà vu

As I set off from Cool Runnings a little jeep stopped and called out, ‘You going to the cricket? Hop in.’ There was a rather unpleasant twang in their voices. ‘I wouldn’t put you down as natural England supporters,’ I said. ‘We’re not,’ they said. ‘We’re Aussies.’ Turns out that they had been living on their boat for the last 20 years and always come to support the West Indies. Contrary to the general rule, they were actually very pleasant.

My lift got me to the ground good and early so I had time to walk back towards town to Uncle Griffiths’ food shack on the side of the road. The selection of filled buns was not appetizing but it was better than nothing. Uncle Griffith is a toothless old man. When I asked him what was wrapped in the green stuff in a long bun he said enigmatically, ‘You have to fin’ out.’ Turned out to be a rather tasteless cold dog with American mustard. That and a rather more palatable fish bun kept me going for the day.

On the way back to the ground I came across a very rotund Robbo trudging up the hill, trademark Union Jack porkpie hat on his head and haversack on his back. Cheerful is not a word you would use to describe Robbo. Covid has not been kind to him banged up in his flat in Southampton. ‘I was walking 7 or 8 miles a day before it,’ he said. ‘Now it’s a struggle. And my age.’ I asked him how old he was. Three years younger than I am.

When I got to the ground Clarky was selling The Corridor of Uncertainty under the shade of a tree. He’s doing well though he was shaking a bit because he was waiting for his meds to kick in. He deserves all our admiration.

At first the cricket was very predictable. Woakes and Overton opened the bowling and made no impact.  Saqib, as usual, looked more fiery but midway through the morning Braithwaite and Campbell brought up the 50 opening partnership – the openers job half done. But then came the break through. Who else, but Stokes who had Braithwaite for 17? By lunchtime Brooks and Campbell had gone and it was 71-3. All those runs that Leach and Mahmood had put on yesterday evening began to feel rather valuable.

Steve [12:11] ‘No sign of the pilot, I think I’m going to have to bail out I’m just wasting time chasing this. I’m going to find a bar that has the game on tv.’ After lunch Woakes started bowling short and amazingly was effective. Twice in one over he banged it in and got the wickets of Bonner and Holder. At 82-5 it was following a similar pattern to England’s innings. Then came an error from Foakes who failed to take a low chance of Blackwood. He was lbw to Woakes in the next over so it made no difference to the score but it made one wonder about Foakes who missed a stumping in Barbados and let through 18 byes in this innings. At tea the West Indies were 128-7 with only Da Silva and the bowlers to come. Could we peg them back?

No we couldn’t is the short answer. Just as he had in the last innings at Barbados Da Silva cut and pulled aggressively. Possibly, as it had done when Leach and Mahmood were batting yesterday, the ball had softened. But let’s take nothing away from the batsmen. Joseph made 28  and by at stumps Da Silva had made his fifty and was still there with Roach. With the score on 232 the West Indies already had a lead of 28.

View of the harbour from the restaurant balcony

I’ve been back to my place in True Blue every evening so I decided that tonight I’d eat in town. On the harbour is an upmarket restaurant right on the bay. I remembered it from my last visit here with Peter 7 years ago. It is pretty much what it was then. I sat on a stool on the balcony and watched the sun go down drinking the most delicious rum punches. Not cheap but very moreish.

I got The Corridor of Uncertainty out of my bag. Clarky’s editorial is a diatribe against Tom Harrison and  the ECB which is so vitriolic, describing him as a thief and an ‘untrustworthy swindler’ who has ‘embezzled’ money from the ECB, as to be almost libellous. Tractor then has a very good but more temperate article on the same theme and Clarky’s mate, Big Harvey who has moved to Winnipeg in Canada, writes  a very amusing and informative article comparing cricket to baseball. It’s well worth a read. Check it out on www.corridorofuncertainty.com.

DAY 3 Saturday 26  March: Can’t bowl: can’t bat

The roads had a distinct Saturday feel and I arrived the bus station in St George’s in good time.  I didn’t have to bother with Uncle Griffith today  because there was a food shack nearby where I got some chicken wings and a kind of savoury doughnut for my lunch.

When I got to my seat I was thinking that with two wickets to go another 30 runs might be about right. Say we got them out for around 250? A 50 run deficit on the first innings wouldn’t seem too bad. It started off in the right direction when Saqib had Roach caught behind with the score on 245. Then, before last man Seales had scored, there was an appeal from Foakes for an lbw off Saqib. Foakes’s hand stayed up for a while but no-one else seemed interested. The appeal was turned down and not reviewed. The replay showed that Foakes had been right.  Had they reviewed my target of another 30 or 40 runs would have been met.

But, alas, that was as good as it got. Da Silva carried on in the same mode as he had yesterday evening. Woakes hit him on the hand when he was on 65 but it didn’t stem the flow of runs. Seales was an effective partner at the other end. As it got towards lunch and Da Silva was creeping towards his ton, I said to the guy next to me, ‘I don’t mind if he gets it. He deserves it.’ When he reached it he collapsed on the ground with emotion. Everyone, English and West Indian, stood to give him a standing ovation. A couple of balls later he appeared to have gloved it and was given out. He reviewed almost as a matter of form but walked back only to be recalled as the replay showed he hadn’t touched it. That just about summed up England’s day. Finally on the dot of lunch Root caught and bowled Seales. West Indians had reached 297, a lead of 93.

The lunchtime dancing troop

There was some wonderful entertainment at the lunch interval. A steel band with a ferocious drummer were playing wildly for a troupe of dancers who were dressed in a variety of weird Carnival costumes. Some in reds and blacks had hoods over their heads and a cross on their tunic. They stomped in front of the crowd in boots with bottle tops on the soles clacking like tap dancers. Others appeared to have Indian-type headdresses with feathers. The star was a brightly clad birdman in the colours of Grenada who danced and swayed on stilts waving his wings in a threatening display. I wondered what deep Shamanic cultural references are at play here.

What dent could England make into the deficit of 93? Not a lot is the answer. It was another woeful batting collapse, worse even than on Day 1, helped along by some more excellent accurate bowling from West Indian all-rounder, Kyle Mayers. Crawley belted a couple of cracking drives which was probably not the best tactic at this stage as his next attempt off Seales, taken by a juggling Holder at slip, demonstrated.  14-1. Root fell in similar fashion to Mayers at 27-2. Lawrence shouldered arms and was bowled, again off burly Mayers who now ran through the England batting order for his first five-for. He doesn’t have a long run up but bowls straight on a length with a very whippy arm action.

A couple of times after lunch Da Silva appeared to have cramp, drained probably by his valiant innings in the morning. He went off and Brooks took the gloves. Three balls later poor Stokes was disconsolate when he feathered one off the toe of his bat to the new keeper. 39-4. Lees meanwhile played sensibly at the other end.

At tea it was time to hit the rum and ginger. For a while there was a sensible partnership between Lees and Bairstow but there followed two needless dismissals. Bairstow swiped at a ball of Joseph straight into the hands of Da Silva who had returned to the fray.  80-5. 3 runs later Foakes was stupidly run out, the ball already in the hand of Mayers, in the action again, when Foakes turned for an unnecessary second run. 83-6. The screen showed Collingwood with his head in his hands. These two wickets and those of Crawley and Root showed that the England batsmen had learned nothing from the exemplary patience that Braithwaite had showed at Barbados to earn his team a draw.

Junior Murray / Rawl Lewis Stand

There are far fewer England fans here than there were at Barbados. This may mean that the West Indian support is more noticeable. However, Grenada has just dropped the requirement to be vaccinated to enter the ground which probably helped swell the local crowd. And today was Saturday so there was no work for many of them. They were mostly concentrated in the Junior Murray stand and the one opposite which lacks a name, perhaps because there aren’t enough Grenadian Test players to honour.

They were having a whale of a time. At the end of each over, after each ball even, the silvery beat of the steel band in the Junior Murray stand competed with the booming loud speakers from the stand opposite. Conch shells were booming and horns were braying. In front of the band were two women with wide colourful aprons round their waist and turbans to match. Nothing like the sexless girls in hotpants waving pom-poms who performed in front of the Party Stand in Bridgetown, these women, like the lunchtime dance troupe, seemed to be authentic as they held out their skirts and swirled and swayed to the music.

An ironic cheer went up when 4 leg byes put England in the lead by 2. At least it won’t be an innings defeat but Lees was bowled by Mayers for a patient 31 and Overton didn’t stay long. The day ended at 5.30 with Woakes on 9 and Leach (again!) on 1. 103-8.

May be today was the nadir of English cricket. I left the ground thinking that I won’t bother to turn up for the last rites tomorrow.

DAY 4 Sunday 27  March: This is when a team needs its fans

In the event I did. It’s easy to support your team when they are winning: it’s when they are down that they really need their fans. How could I not be there to give Jack Leach a cheer? Did I really travel 2,000 miles only to say I can’t be arsed on the last day? And what if there was another terrific last stand from Leach and Woakes? No brainer. I had to be there. I was not alone. Many England supporters obviously felt the same as I did.

It didn’t take long though. Woakes was brilliantly caught one-handed by Holder flinging himself to his right in the slips. Leach soon followed and the West Indies had 28 to get which Campbell and Braithwaite, fittingly there at the end, polished off in less than 5 overs. By half eleven it was over: a ten wicket defeat.

The players gathered on the outfield to shake hands. Da Silva realised he’d forgotten something and dashed back onto the field to grab a stump. The West Indies team did a parade of honour round the field waving the stumps to the applause of all the fans, English and West Indian.

Where do we go from here?

This really feels like the slow death of English Test cricket. We haven’t won a Test for 17 matches since that aberration in the first Test of the last India tour. Let’s give it to the West Indies. They deserved to win the series. They outplayed us with bat, ball and tactical nous. There are very few positives for England to take away from this game and or the series. The selection was crazy for a start. What on earth was the point of leaving our two best bowlers at home? Of course they can’t go on for ever but they’re as good as we’ve got. Whatever the long term arguments might be the England team needs to start winning. At the moment it’s hard to see that happening. It’s easy to blame the players, the batsmen in particular whose shot selection was woeful. But ultimately there’s something rotten at the core of cricket in England. So long as the four day game is marginalised to the start and end of the season and priority is given only to the short formats nothing will change. The Hundred epitomises everything that is wrong. It serves absolutely no point other than to make money and to undermine the county structure. No other country is ever going to take up that format when they all have successful T20 franchise cricket. As Vic Marks once said, it stretches over the English summer like a rapacious wolf. Until it goes there is no way that any restructuring of English cricket will take place.

I have tickets this summer for New Zealand at Headingley, India at Edgbaston and South Africa at The Oval. I don’t hold out much hope of improvement. The Oval Test will be my 96th Test. Presumably in 2023 will come my ton. The big question is, will there be anything worth watching after that?

Goodbye from a rather sad Five0

0 comment
9

Related Articles