At about 4.30pm on the second day in Nottingham a small pocket of England supporters over in the Fox Road Stand began chanting Jimmy Anderson’s name. It said a bit about the esteem in which the great man is held, clearly, but in this first week of his retirement, a bit more about the wickets column on the scoreboard next to them.
Anderson was perched on a balcony at the time and possibly happy to be there with his feet up. It was hard graft out there for his mentees, with hot sunshine, a flat pitch and some scraggy, repeatedly replaced Dukes balls offering them little by way of assistance. More importantly for both West Indies and the series, there were also two batters rallying hard to trigger this restlessness from the home crowd.
One of them fell shortly after the musical interlude, Alick Athanaze’s classy innings of flowing drives and swivel pulls terminated for a career-best 82 when he flashed hard at a wide one from Ben Stokes and the ball flew to gully. But Kavem Hodge, Athanaze’s fellow Dominican, ploughed on, registering his maiden Test century – 120 from 171 balls – as West Indies, replying to England’s 416, posted 351 for five by stumps.
It was a glorious knock from Hodge, a compact right-hander who, at 31 and winning just his fourth cap, knows this may be his one shot at Test cricket. Whatever follows, Hodge will be able to tell folks back in Roseau about the time that, on 97, he drove Stokes down the ground for four, punched the air with a skip and then jumped into the arms of the giant Jason Holder. Trent Bridge, packed and well-oiled by this point, rose as one.
Just as expressive was the reaction when he finally fell around half an hour before the close, Hodge throwing his head back and his bat in the air after Hawk-Eye confirmed the lbw to be a bail-trimmer. With a bachelor’s degree in kinesiology, Hodge knows a fair bit about human body movement – not that one was needed to work out the anguish here. Although perhaps we are getting confused with body language.
Either way, the relief for the bowler was palpable. Chris Woakes is playing his 50th Test match, has a stellar home record and was England’s player of the series in last summer’s Ashes. But the 35-year-old has found himself drawn into the debate around Anderson’s enforced exit and, having been steady but slightly unthreatening before his late strike, he will have sensed the growing disquiet from the bleachers.
Mark Wood, by contrast, had done everything but get an outage on the day the world’s IT systems glitched, with four unrewarded spells of fire and brimstone that still had Holder flashing at fresh air at the end. All that was lacking was a tumbling stump or Joe Root to have held the one chance offered by Hodge. Instead, Wood’s outing ended in troubling fashion when, in discomfort, he walked off one ball into the fourth over of his final burst.
This being England’s first day in the field at home since 2012 without one of Anderson or Stuart Broad, it was always going to feel slightly strange. Although by lunch, with West Indies 89 for three, few were muttering about it. Wood’s first salvo had woken the crowd up, hitting an eye-watering 97.1mph and never once dropping into the 80s. Shoaib Bashir, enjoying his first bowl on home soil, profited twice at the other end.
Mikyle Louis and Kirk McKenzie both fell to miscued yahoos, the temptation to cash in away from Wood’s menace too strong. There was also a fine bit of work to prise out Kraigg Brathwaite for a typically gritty 48. Gus Atkinson replaced Wood and, even with the short-ball ploy well telegraphed by a fly slip and two men out on the hook, he forced the West Indies captain to fence to short-leg with a ball speared into the armpit region.
But over the course of a wicketless afternoon Athanaze and Hodge pushed back with a 175-run stand that contained all the application and tempo that was lacking at Lord’s last week. Athanaze, Brian Lara’s stated favourite among the current crop, was particularly glossy, the 25-year-old possessing a lovely bat swing and, going by a bloodcurdling clonk to the helmet by Wood on 48, a fair bit of steel with it.
This Dominican double act should have been broken sooner, it should be noted. Wood replaced a second spell from Woakes after lunch and saw Root at slip grass a scorching nick off Hodge when the right-hander had just 16 to his name. Equally, the three ball changes along the way owed much to the pair walloping them out of shape in between periods of diligent, correct defence and wing-heeled running.
Bashir toiled away for 22 overs that cost a neat 100, the off-spinner almost grooving his action on the highest stage after struggling to get a game for Somerset and failing to catch his captain’s eye at Lord’s. Without much turn to work with – only subtle changes of flight and angle – it became tougher once West Indies stopped trying to go aerial.
That said, Athanaze still delivered the one six of the day when, on the stroke of tea, he propelled Bashir into the section where the Anderson chants began. As Holder and Joshua Da Silva saw out the day with a positive 46-run stand that pushed West Indies to within 65 runs of parity, one wondered whether they might return.
