Key events
18th over: West Indies 46-2 (Louis 25, Athanaze 7) Wood gets another delivery to spit like a camel having a tantrum, Louis looked very uncomfortable fending that off his ribs with one hand off the bat. And you wouldn’t?! Ollie Pope gestures towards Ben Stokes about getting the lid on and camping out at ‘Boot Hill’/short leg.
17th over: West Indies 44-2 (Louis 24, Athanaze 6) Bashir continues, a light breeze fluttering the back of his shirt as he approaches the crease. A tidy over of dots is spoilt by a leg side ball that Louis sweeps with a minimum of fuss for four.
16th over: West Indies 40-2 (Louis 20, Athanaze 6) Mark Wood thunders in. “A fast bowler in heart and mind” Mike Atherton channels the late, great John Arlott in his appraisal of the Durham fast bowler on the tv commentary. Wood is clocking 90mph plus already, which boggles the mind really. Ouch! A snorting delivery from Wood rises sharply and crashes into Athanaze’s shoulder. That’ll be a peach sized bruise in no time.
15th over: West Indies 39-2 (Louis 19, Athanaze 6) Bashir shuffles to the crease with quick feet and a high arm. Athanaze rocks back to pierce the covers with a push and he takes a single. Mikyle Louis on strike. He’s had a decent series without yet making a stellar contribution. Bashir finds some turn but it drifts down the leg side and beats Jamie Smith behind the stumps, the first boundary of the day comes in byes.
To the strains of Jerusalem – here is the TMS overseas link
https://m.youtube.com/live/dtcDCZKUx1A?cbrd=1
Merci to Simon Dennis for that.
Here come the players. Edgbaston a picture in bright sunshine. We’re going to have spin to start with so I better be on my mettle. Shoaib Bashir was rattling through his overs at warp speed last night, clearly not giving a solitary shiny one about the poor OBO scribe. Let’s play!
Bending over to load the dishwasher puts about 2 x through it I reckon…
Fast bowling puts about 8x your body weight through the front leg each delivery.
Mark Wood is totally compelling when watching how much he puts into each delivery…#bbccricket pic.twitter.com/6tE0pKjj5q
— Henry Moeran (@henrymoeranBBC) July 28, 2024
Back to the cricket – our man Ali Martin’s report from Day two is well worth a read before play gets underway in a little over five minutes.
Big Boss Steve McMillan is our Olympics Editor and I’ve just chuckled into my Kenco reading his diary from a week in Paris.
Emmanuel and Brigitte do a walkabout. I try to get close for pearls of wisdom but bodyguards fend me off. My colleague Nick Ames bursts past and thrusts out a paw: “Bonjour monsieur, le président!” Eyes meet, hands are shaken. Macron utters the immortal words: “The Guardian? Thank you for being here.” Nick has the scoop. I am empty-handed. This is why he is an intrepid war-zone reporter and I eat packed lunches at a desk.”
Not that you’ll be diverting your attention away from the OBO for single second but the Olympics are in full swing and of course The Guardian have got you covered – follow on with the Olympics blog right here:
I watched the swimming last night after eating a huge Spaghetti Bolognese. Adam Peaty’s droplet laden hulking frame a totem of athletic masculinity. One last dip of garlic bread into the ragu and a vow to do some press ups today…
Joe Root is a great of the game. Watching him yesterday was an absolute joy. If I was Sachin Tendulkar (and I must stress that I am not) then I reckon I’d be having a nervy little look over my shoulder.
At Trent Bridge, Root had produced a match-defining partnership with Brook to usher England safely through the most awkward period of the game. Here, he did a similar job in the company of Stokes, gradually lifting the pressure on his team and transferring it on to their opponents, creating the conditions that would eventually allow Smith and Chris Woakes to put the home side fully in control, making the unlikely achievable.
On which subject Sachin Tendulkar, the greatest of them all, is 3,960 runs away. On days like this it feels like just a matter of time.”
Preamble
James Wallace
Hello, good morning and welcome to the OBO of day three at Edgbaston. Will this be the final day of the series? Hope not, hope not.
After reducing England to 54-5 yesterday morning, West Indies would have been half thinking about a first innings lead they could stretch in their second dig and set England a tough chase at the back end of the game.
Enter Jamie Smith. The wicketkeeper batter showed exactly why Stokes and McCullum took an informed punt on him over Jonny Bairstow and Ben Foakes. Smith took the precarious situation and the friendly volley from Jason Holder upon arrival at the crease well and truly in his stride.
Batting with the imperious Joe Root the 24 year old lad from Epsom played a remarkably assured innings. Working his way through the gears through the afternoon, Smith got England to a position of safety and then dominance. He fully deserved a first Test century but was undone by a slower ball scudder from Shamar Joseph on 95. Even his phlegmatic attitude to missing out on the personal milestone was impressive:
If someone had said to me at the start of the day: ‘You’ll get 95,’ I definitely would have taken it…I’ll be a little bit gutted in a couple of days to miss out on the milestone but it’s great to put in a performance for the team. It’s nice to set that out quite early in your career, that you are someone that’s going to go out and be positive and not be afraid of the opposition.”
England winkled out two wickets at the close, leaving West Indies adrift by 61 runs with eight wickets remaining in their second innings. All results are in play at the dawn of day three – apart from the dreaded draw of Ben Stokes’s nightmares of course.
Please do get in touch if you are tuning in, play gets underway in a little over 30 minutes at 11am BST.