Jason Holder is a softly spoken West Indies captain but that does not mean his words do not carry weight and before the third Test there was a point he clearly wanted to get across. Much of the focus on the tourists had revolved around matters of personnel. Holder, however, was insistent they had been competitive with bat and ball, such that he was minded to keep the faith with 10 of the XI, and had instead spotted another area in need of urgent improvement: fielding.
Any team with Shannon Gabriel and Rahkeem Cornwall is going to have some limitations – more on the latter shortly – but on the opening day on Friday there were two flashes of excellence that suggested Holder’s orders had permeated, starting with the run-out of Joe Root for 17.
Root, moved up to No 3 in this refurbished England side, was going against his cliche of reaching 20-odd without anyone noticing following the early loss of Dom Sibley. Holder was dovetailing Kemar Roach’s early breakthrough beautifully and the England captain was forced into self-preservation.
With Gabriel off the park with some general stiffness and the off-spin of Cornwall brought on sooner than Holder’s bowl-first strategy otherwise suggested, Root and his partner, Rory Burns, had a fresh chance to start working a few quick singles and get the scoreboard ticking along.
Here was an early test of Holder’s brief and Roston Chase met it superbly. Burns dabbed a wide delivery past slip and Root was dozing. He was almost standing on his bat at the non-striker’s end before setting off late as Chase glided round from backward point and threw down the stumps with a bail-trimming sidearm slingshot.
While Chase is a lithe cricketer capable of delivering such interventions, the same cannot be said about Cornwall. At 6ft 6in tall, and an estimated 22 stone, he will never be a Jonty Rhodes. But the Antiguan, playing his third Test, has built a reputation as a fine slip-catcher while changing a few minds about his suitability for Test cricket along the way.
Holder mentioned Cornwall’s prowess there before the recall, as well as tipping him to be the best off-spinner on show. The figures do not yet live up to the second endorsement but in the afternoon session, with Burns having chiselled his way to 57 and England taking control, he certainly demonstrated the first.
Slip catches from a batsman meeting spin on the front foot are tricky enough but off the back foot their difficulty increases hugely. As Burns rocked back to cut Chase – now the most curious of nemeses – Cornwall simply held his position to pluck a superb one-handed reflex catch from the air.
This was not quite a perfect day for West Indies. Chase fumbled another possible run-out chance with his weaker left hand and could not quite reach a committed diving effort in the deep off Ollie Pope. Shane Dowrich was ragged behind the stumps.
But if fielding is an attitude, as Trevor Bayliss used to say, then the early signs in this deciding Test are that the tourists have theirs back.
