The ball bounced low, lower than Moeen Ali imagined it would when he leaned back and started to bring through his bat to cut it past point. It flicked off the bottom edge and shot through to Shane Dowrich, who dropped down and caught it just before it hit the ground. Dowrich’s grin fell off his face the moment he looked up again. The bowler, Devendra Bishoo, had already wheeled on his heel, back towards Sundaram Ravi, who had his arm out, not up. No-ball or so Ravi called. Replays showed he had got it wrong, that Bishoo’s heel was just over the line when his toes landed.
Moeen was on 32 at the time and England’s lead was 205, so West Indies were just in touch. An hour later, when Moeen was caught at long-on for 84, that lead was 275 and they were out of it again. The odd thing was Shannon Gabriel had already got away with a lot of genuine no-balls earlier in the innings. Perhaps that was why Ravi felt he ought to call this one, even though it was so tight. Odder still, there was no review, though it is always the first thing the third umpire checks when a team uses the DRS.
Before the afternoon’s clamour the morning was calm. Leeds was quiet, an indolent bank holiday still settled over every corner of the city except the little patch around the cricket ground. There the atmosphere was sharp with anticipation. The spectators who had made the late decision the night before to come along trotted up to the ticket booths and the rest walked briskly on to the entry gates, their thoughts focused by the closeness of the contest. Days like these make old men happy as little kids again.
England’s remaining batsmen were so keen for more practice before the start of play that they carried on batting while the nets were disassembled around them. The West Indians were intent too. In a match as delicately poised as this one was at the start of play each session, every spell seems to assume a high importance, so fans and commentators alike find themselves telling each other over and again that whatever happens next will be key. The game became a sequence of crucial little moments, balance swaying either way.
Jason Holder opened with his two fast bowlers, Gabriel and Kemar Roach. The trouble was he kept them both on just a touch too long. He was rewarded with Joe Root’s wicket for it but the cost was that when the second new ball became available, 30 minutes or so before lunch, he did not feel able to take it. Instead he waited until the other side of the break, when Gabriel and Roach were better rested. In the meantime the partnership between Ben Stokes and Dawid Malan was well under way.
Rested or not, Roach and Gabriel wasted that new ball by bowling too wide, too often. They were flagging. Malan, on the other hand, looked bedraggled, his cream kit covered in dust, but batted doggedly on.
His fifty, off 162 balls, was the slowest he had made in first-class cricket. He had been caught behind when he was on four but West Indies chose not to review the decision, then dropped on 32 when Dowrich dived across in front of Kieron Powell at slip. Malan persisted but looked ever so vulnerable at points, especially when Holder was bowling to him from around the wicket.
When England selected Malan they did it in large part because they were so pleased with the 78 he had made when they picked him for a T20 game in June. It was not his technique so much as his temperament that impressed them. They felt he would not be fazed by Test cricket. He showed that mettle again here, playing against type because it was what the team needed him to do. Like Mark Stoneman he took a large step towards the winter tour in his innings.
West Indies were almost spent now. Gabriel in particular looked out on his feet, a prizefighter waiting for the bell. Holder, who led his team so well with his own batting and bowling on Sunday, had let things slip.
He was lost in thought at mid-on, his players idle around him, arms by their hips, heads down, while the match slipped through their hands – until England allowed them to get a grip back on it.
Ben Stokes lofted a lazy drive to long-off. Malan was bowled. Jonny Bairstow played on with a wildly ambitious reverse sweep.
Three wickets fell in six overs. But the West Indies could not take advantage. It was as if, having won so seldom in the last few years, the opportunity in front of them was so unfamiliar that they did not recognise it when it came. Ravi’s no-ball call was a bad break but all the chances they failed to take cost them just as much.
