After yet another poor day as a fielding unit, West Indies bowling coach Roddy Estwick did not stop himself from expressing his frustration as the visitors are now in danger of losing the second Test which was very much going their way after the first two days of the match.
In the first innings, West Indies had dropped Joe Root and Ben Stokes and the England stars fully capitalized by scoring a fifty and century respectively to guide the hosts to a respectable total. The story remained the same in the second innings too as after once again dropping Root on the third day, they dropped Dawid Malan and Jonny Bairstow on a penultimate day.
Malan’s dismissal could have turned the game West Indies’ way as the lead was still below 50 and already 4 of the England batsmen were back in the pavilion. Malan went on to score 61 and added 91 runs with Ben Stokes to bring England into the game.
“It’s been very frustrating, mainly because we work very, very hard at it,” Estwick said after fourth day’s play. “We continue to make mistakes at critical times. When we dropped Malan today, England could have been 50 for 5. You can’t continue to give good players chances at this level and we really paid for it.”
That luck was also not in West Indies’ side was very much clear when Moeen Ali got a reprieve on 32 after edging behind off Devendra Bishoo delivery which was a no-ball. Moeen went on to score 84 off just 93 balls and added 117 runs with Chris Woakes (61) to put England firmly in the driver’s seat as they declared on 490 for 8, setting the tourists a daunting target of 322.
West Indies ended the day on five for no loss and need to bat out of their skin on the final day pitch to save the game or register an unlikely win. The pitch is likely to make things tough for the visitors but Estwick insisted they are still looking to win the game.
“We’re still looking to win this Test match,” said Estwick. “We’ve got nothing to lose. We’re still in with a chance. If we can play well enough in the first two sessions, then we’ll assess at tea and see where we’re at.
“I remember in 1984, we were set 300-odd and Gordon Greenidge got 200-odd and we won that Test match. So hopefully tomorrow the boys can come out and go well. But the key thing for us is that we’ve shown improvement after the Birmingham Test match when everyone was saying we were the worst team to ever arrive on these shores. We’ve scrapped and battled and taken it on the fifth day of a chance of winning,” he added.