The irony of an off spinner who cannot get in a Second Division county side but who now plays a big part in dismissing an international side in a Test match is not lost on James Tredwell.
Last summer Tredwell, a regular in England’s one-day side, conceded his county place to the young Adam Riley, and was seconded to Sussex instead for a while. But in the Sir Vivian Richards stadium his clever brand of flight and drift brought him figures of four for 47 as West Indies were bowled out for 295, 104 runs behind England. Included in that was the prized wicket of Shivnarine Chanderpaul, who appeared immoveable until he drove Tredwell to extra cover.
This is Tredwell’s second Test, five years after his first, and he is mindful that it might be his last for a while, with Moeen Ali returning to the squad for the remainder of the series following his recovery from injury sustained during the World Cup.
Tredwell, though, believes that at least he has given the England selectors something to ponder, with possibly more to come when West Indies bat again. “I think Moeen coming back probably has been in the back of my mind,” he said after the third day’s play, “but I’ve tried not to think too deeply about it. I guess I wanted to give them a bit of a headache shall we say, and hopefully I’ve done that now and it is over to the people who make that decision.”
It was an odd summer for him. “It is a bit of a strange scenario in some ways,“ he said. “I went back to county cricket and my game was a little bit one-day biased. I got a bit round arm and was undercutting the ball so there was a mutual decision made that I work on my action a bit. Adam Riley came in and started knocking sides over for fun so it would have been a difficult decision to pick me again at that point.
“But when I went to Sussex I got good overs under my belt and by the end of the season I was bowling pretty well. I went back to Kent and got four in each innings against Hampshire so I feel I’ve been in a good place for a while now.”
He was able to make full use of the strong cross breeze blowing from right to left. “In terms of having a cross wind,” he said,” if there is not much happening off the wicket having that bit in the air can just give you that little something and so I was able to play on that to try to challenge both edges. With Chanderpaul we had spoken a bit about him, to try to get him out there playing through the offside. Sometimes plans come off, sometimes they don’t but it did today.”
