Brathwaite, Shai revive Windies after Anderson's strikes

Brathwaite, Shai revive Windies after Anderson's strikes

How English the morning was! A near-capacity Headingley crowd dressed in different theme, dark clouds hovering over the ground and a four-man, at times five, slip cordon busy almost every ball. Not surprisingly, James Anderson was bound to be in action, and in action he was. Starting the day seven wickets short of the 500-Test wicket mark, the veteran pacer unleashed all his skills, had the Windies batsmen hopping and squared up, bagged two more and left the tourists on 109 for 3 at Lunch. But the session belonged to the Windies, courtesy some fine batting by Kraigg Brathwaite and Shai Hope

In one of the rare sessions in modern day cricket, both the batsmen and the bowlers had to put their patience to test. Reward wasn't going to come easy for either. With conditions conducive for swing and batsmen looking out of sorts, it was only a matter of time before the edges flew to the 'keeper or the slip cordon. The fact that the English bowlers managed to make the batsmen play most of the deliveries but couldn't get the ball fly all the way to the slips was the reason behind their frustration and the dejected body language of the team as they walked back to the pavilion for Lunch on Day 3. There were ample edges and the play and misses, but not accounting for as many wickets as the hosts would have liked. To make matters worse, there were also the edges that went past the vacant gully region for boundaries.

Given the nature of the weather and the pitch and the way the English bowlers were bowling, Windies needed to be watchful and patient. For as far as Kraigg Brathwaite was at the crease, the visitors didn't have much to sweat over that. He has testified for his waiting games for a long time now. But question marks remained about the level of patience batsmen at the other end would display. But Shai Hope did well to survive. Even as the swing of Anderson and Chris Woakes made him look completely out of sorts, batting against Stuart Broad, he displayed good control. With the tall pacer generating little swing, both the batsmen settled well once he was brought back into operation for his second spell of the day.

There were a couple of times on-field umpire S Ravi erred with his calls, both times wrongly judging Kraigg Brathwaite out. But the batsmen had little hesitation on both occasions to go for a review and have it overturned. On the first occasion, it was a full pitched delivery by Stuart Broad, in the first over of his second spell of the day, which got the inside edge of the bat and hit Brathwaite's pad. On the second instance, it was Moeen Ali, in his first over, getting the ball to viciously turn and hit the opener's pad. As it turned out, the ball hit the pads outside the line of the offstump.

Earlier in the day, Devendra Bishoo fell for the oldest trap in Test cricket. Anderson, coming from over the wicket, angled the ball across the southpaw and got him to edge it to the keeper. With four fielders in the slip cordon, the plan was to get him to drive. He had failed a few times already going for the drive but he refused to hold back and gifted England an easy wicket.

The veteran swing bowler added one more to his kitty soon enough, when he managed to induce the outside edge of Kyle Hope's bat with a sharp inswinger. The ball flew to Joe Root at second slip and the England skipper took an easy catch. Windies were reduced to 35 for 3 in just over half an hour of the day, and Anderson had taken his march towards No 500 to 495.

But the third wicket pair of Brathwaite and Shai showed resolute defence, often erred and beaten, but good enough to survive. With the lead pacers not delivering the kind of results the captain would have wanted, despite some good bowling, he resorted to his fourth and fifth bowlers - Ben Stokes and Moeen Ali. Brathwaite, after the second reprieve, stepped out of his crease and hit the offspinner over the boundary ropes to bring up his half century. He continued his attack against Moeen for the rest of his spell and quickly took Windies past the 100-run mark. The display of audacity continued against Stokes as well, with one of the edges going over the second slip for a boundary. The fact that it could have nearly resulted in his dismissal after wading through a tough period of play would have made him reconsider his approach. He went to break on 62, with Shai giving him company - batting on 33.

For the fourth session in succession in this Test, Windies hold the upperhand - this time courtesy an unbeaten 74-run stand for the fourth wicket. Resuming on 19 for 1, the visitors added 90 runs to their overnight score in the morning session.

Brief scores: Windies 109/1 (Kraigg Brathwaite 63*; James Anderson 3-10) trail England 258 by 149 runs.