West Indian cricket, declared dead after the rout at Edgbaston 10 days ago, is alive again after the Headingley Test. They beat England by five wickets with 28 balls to spare in a thrilling match that gave a fillip to Test cricket after a string of one-sided matches. They made 322 to win, thanks in large part to a brilliant 118 not out from Shai Hope.
It was West Indies’ first Test victory in England since 2000 and it means the series is level, one-all with a third match to come at Lord’s. Whatever happens there it will be a long while before anyone dreams of writing off this West Indian team again. And all that background chatter about cutting Test matches down from five days to four might die down too.
Joe Root, then, became the fourth England captain to lose a Test after declaring in the third innings. He had made a strikingly bold decision when he set West Indies 322 to win by calling in Chris Woakes and Stuart Broad so that his bowlers could have six overs at the West Indian batsmen on Monday night.
“In hindsight it’s easy to say that the declaration might not have been timed right,” Root admitted, “but I thought last night it was the positive thing to do. We’re a side that wants to go out there and win Test matches and we wanted to put ourselves in a position to do that.”
He said that he would stick with those same attacking instincts next time he was in a similar position. “It was a fifth-day wicket,” Root said. “Maybe we slightly misread it but I felt we had the opportunity to win.”
He also defended his aggressive field placings during much of the final day, when he kept his slips in place as West Indies closed in on the target. “There was a temptation to be more defensive,” the England captain said, but “I felt that the best chance of slowing things down was to take wickets. It would have been easy to go to a seven-two field and try and go at two runs an over but I wanted to take the positive route.”
Root felt England’s bigger mistakes were made on the first two days, when they were bowled out for 258 after they won the toss and batted first, then conceded 427. “Being brutally honest, on the first two days we weren’t as good as we can be,” the captain said.
“We weren’t good enough first up with the bat. Any time you don’t make 300 when you bat first having won the toss you should be disappointed.”
The fact the game had been so entertaining was precious little consolation. “I’m sure it was a great Test match for everyone watching but it wasn’t great to be involved with on the losing side.”
West Indies were elated but not entirely surprised by what they had achieved. “We had a really good team meeting after Edgbaston and I could see most of the guys understood a lot more about what was required of them,” Jason Holder, the captain, said. Their coach, Stuart Law, challenged them before the series to “make their own history”. And now they have.
