Very rarely do we mention Test Cricket on these pages, as it is given such blanket coverage on other forms of the media. However it would seem churlish not to mention England's splendid victory in India, where they managed to win handsomely despite all the problems of Covid they have had to withstand for such a long time and an Indian team full of confidence after their success in Australia. Particularly pleasing was the display of the England captain in his one hundreth Test Match, especially so to we favoured few who have watched his progress closely since he first appeared for the Yorkshire Academy as a young teenager who looked even younger.
It was particularly good to see the splendid tribute video prepared by ECB with contributions from many people from cricket, other sports and his family to celebrate the hundred match milestone. Here is a picture taken at Loughborough many years ago when Root and Stokes were batting together for England Under 15s, when we first met Joe's grandad, who appears at the end of the video.
However two other Test Matches were going on in Asia at the same time and the game at the Zohur Ahmed Chowdury Stadium, Chittagong proved to be of particular interest. Bangladesh were hosting the West Indies, who appeared to be fielding a below strength side due to Covid problems. In fact three players were making their Test debuts for the visitors. These three were Sheyne Moseley (26) from Barbados a left handed batsmen who is the nephew of Hallam Moseley, once of Somerset, Nkruma Bonner (32), a right hand bat from Jamaica and Kyle Mayers (28) another left hander, also from Barbados.
West Indies lost the toss and Bangladesh batted first. The visitors might have been reasonably happy when Bangladesh were 193-5, but the game turned against them when the number eight batsman for the home side, Mehedi Hasan, scored a century and with good support from the tail took the Bangladesh total to 430 all out. It got no better when West Indies batted, losing three early wickets, but new skipper Brathwite with 76 and Blackwood with 68, together with 40 from Mayers kept them afloat until the tail collapsed and they were all out for 259. A deficit of 171.
Bangladesh then collapsed to 33-3 before skipper Mominul Haque scored another century and took them well past the 200 mark before declaring on 223-8. This set West Indies the mammoth target of 395 to win and when they finished day four on 110-3 it looked very much as if defeat was staring them in the face. However the two debutants Bonner and Mayers had other ideas and were both not out at the end of day four.
On day five these two took the game by the scruff of the neck and despite living dangerously at times put on an incredible partnership of 216 for the fourth wicket. Bonner was eventually out for 86 which took him just over five hours, but he kept his end up and enabled Mayers to take complete control. Blackwood was also out quickly but wicket keeper De Silva stayed around to give valuable support as Mayers continued on his merry way to a double century with twenty fours and seven sixes. He was still there at the end, despite losing another two partners, as West Indies cruised to an incredible victory by three wickets with just 2.3 overs remaining. What an advert for Test cricket. I even managed to find highlights of the amazing last day on You Tube.
Mayers apparently toured England last summer but did not get a game. Now he looks like a fixture for some time to come. To score a double century on debut has happened before but not very often. Now we look forward to the next match in the series which starts at Mirpur on Thursday 11th February.
Meanwhile at Rawalpindi, Pakistan were entertaining South Africa and obtained a first innings lead of 71. The South African slow left armer George Linde took 5-64 in the Pakistan second innings, but that still left the visitors chasing a mammoth 370 to win, which would have been the highest innings of the match.
However at one stage it appeared that South Africa might do what West Indies had done when they got to 240-4, with a century for opener Markram, who played briefly for Durham. It was not to be as they then collapsed almost without trace against the pace attack of Shaheen Afridi and Hasan Ali to be all out for 274. Victory for Pakistan by 95 runs so they win the series 2-0. A series of T20 games between the two countries also starts on Thursday 11th February.
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