After three enthralling days the Headingley Test is brewing up into the most entertaining match of the summer. At stumps on Sunday it was so finely poised that the two teams each had very similar ideas about exactly what they needed to do to win the game. England are 171 for three. Two runs ahead with seven wickets in hand, they say they believe a lead of 200 will be enough to put them in charge of the match. West Indies think that, if they can keep that lead down to around 150, then they will be the clear favourites.
The key to it all could well be how well Joe Root bats on Monday, when he will start on 45 not out. The captain was dropped on 10 and then given out by Sundaram Ravi, lbw to Jason Holder on 35, a decision which was overturned on review.
“It’s frustrating but it’s gone. We can’t bring it back,” Holder said. “It was a tough moment. I thought I had him. I guess Mr Ravi’s having an up and down game, I was hoping the decision would have been upheld, but it’s beyond my control.”
All that Holder is thinking about now is how to get Root out on Monday. He said Root was “susceptible outside the off stump on the back foot” and that he and his bowlers would need to be “more patient”. Holder said West Indies had wanted to have England “five or six” down by the close, “so we pushed harder than we should have and we leaked a few runs”. Still, “it’s a good pitch”, he said. “any target around 150 we’ll be happy with. That should be pretty decent”.
On the other hand Mark Stoneman, who made 52, felt England have the advantage. “It’s definitely been a positive day for us and the momentum is now probably in our favour,” he said. “Anything over 200 would feel really in the game, with the quality of bowling that we have.”
Stoneman’s was a tough innings. Holder hit him on the left hand with a short ball and dislocated his finger. “It doesn’t seem to have affected me too much,” he said, “apart from a bit of pain.”
The fact he made his first Test fifty helped with that. “I guess it settled nerves a touch.”
Stoneman hit Kemar Roach for three glorious fours in one early over, which “removed any thoughts that might be in the back of your mind of the scrutiny you’re under when you’re playing Test cricket, especially early on in your career”. Stoneman’s fellow rookie, Tom Westley, did not have that luxury. He was caught behind for eight.
