England’s senior pair revive innings following two early breakthroughs.
Lunch: England 157 for 5 (Root 58*, Stokes 48*, Seales 3-35) trail West Indies 282 (Brathwaite 61, Holder 59, Atkinson 4-67, Woakes 3-69) by 125 runs.
Joe Root and Ben Stokes held England together after the home side’s first-day batting debacle spilled over into the second morning of the third Test against the West Indies at Edgbaston.
Following England’s loss of two vital batsmen in as many overs on Saturday, the pair enjoyed an unbroken 103-run stand off 128 balls for sixth wicket. At lunch, Root was still on 58 and Stokes was on 48.
Within the first half-hour of play, the hosts were 54 for 5, having resumed on 38 for three.
Ollie Pope, who was 6 not out overnight, added only four more runs with a boundary edged wide of second slip before being bowled by a Shamar Joseph delivery that stayed low as he attempted to cut and rebounded onto his stumps.
New batter Harry Brook had just faced three balls when he fell, driving at a Jayden Seales delivery that drifted slightly away, grazing the edge and settling in Joshua Da Silva’s gloves behind the stumps. This earned Seales his third wicket for 26 runs in 5.5 overs.
Root was on three runs when Seales struck him on the pad in the second over of the day, and despite strong West Indies claims for lbw, he was not out. Replays later revealed that, according to ball tracking, it would have impacted a leg stump.
Root passed Brian Lara’s 11,953 Test runs to move into seventh place on the all-time run-scorers’ list as he began his rebuilding effort, hitting Alzarri Joseph for back-to-back fours to reach 25, and completing his 63rd Test fifty with a single off Jason Holder.
Stokes was also steadfast, as evidenced by his smash down the ground for four off Holder shortly before lunch, and he slog-swept Gudakesh Motie into the Hollies Stand to bring his tally to fifty. He had not found it by halftime, but he had joined Root in giving home fans a reason to breathe easy.