England vs West Indies 3rd Test Match Day 1 has been completed and England on the top with 258/4.
England vs West Indies 3rd Test Match Day 1 Report
After England was put in the bat, it ended the first day in Manchester when Ollie Pope and Jos Buttler put together an unbroken 136-run stand to end up leaving England with 258/4.
England vs West Indies 3rd Test Match Highlights
Both sides made changes to their lineup from the second test, with Windies replacing Alzarri Joseph Spinner with Rahkeem Cornwall. England was forced to rebalance their team as it was likely that Ben Stokes would not be able to roll at least for the first innings of the game and dropped Zak Crawley and Sam Curran to make room for the Make return of Jofra Archer and James Anderson.
Jos Buttler has got himself going with a couple of 6️⃣s off Cornwall 💥 #ENGvWIpic.twitter.com/mrLyOy7HoE
— ICC (@ICC) July 24, 2020
After Windies decided to bowl first, he immediately received a reward in the form of Dom Sibley’s wicket, with Kemar Roach holding him for a duck in the opening. Rory Burns and Joe Root stabilized the ship with a 46-year partnership of 20.3 overs before Root tried to play a fast single after an excellent field game by Roston Chase.
Burns formed another good partnership with Ben Stokes and did another 45 runs. But Roach struck again and threw a ball past Stokes’ inside edge to rattle his stumps and leave the result at 92/3. Another promising partnership for the hosts was ended by Roston Chase when Burns – after reaching his first fifty in the series – tried to cut one out of the off-spinner, but instead plunged into a Cornwall slip that was a sharp one Caught.
This brought together Pope and Buttler, who had collected only 127 runs between them in the series before this test at 6:14 p.m. But the couple showed application to weather the storm and settled in well as the partnership grew. The Pope brought up the fifty partnerships and his own fifty with a lavish cover for four when he started to accelerate.
Buttler showed little interest in playing anything other than the most inflated deliveries outside of the stump, and had shown little aggression before grabbing a pair of Cornwall half volleys to hit two sixes in three balls.
Both batsmen occasionally rode their luck with a couple of edgy rides that surely flew through gaps in the field, but for the most part, they fought with discipline. The West Indies delayed the takeover of the second new ball by a few overs, so Buttler had time to move on to his own fifty. The day was canceled because the light faded too much for the game to continue and England 258/4 with Pope was only nine runs behind his second test a hundred.