NICK FRIEND: The world’s top-ranked allrounder just did what he does: quietly going about his business with a quite ruthless efficiency and no shortage of skill
Fair play to Shannon Gabriel: wholehearted, old-school, more skilful than perhaps he is given credit for. There can’t be many fast bowlers around the world who, having not been fit to play a competitive game since a County Championship stint in September, could turn up in this most unusual environment and give to his team what he has given.
Just a fortnight ago, he was still a member of West Indies’ 11-strong reserve group. It was always the plan for him to end up at the Ageas Bowl, only that Phil Simmons wanted to ensure that his quickest bowler was in the physical condition to be just that. Eight wickets across two intra-squad warmup games saw to any lingering concerns – Gabriel had spent his winter undergoing ankle surgery.
There was no sign of a limp here, however. He bustled to the crease and hurried England’s batsmen at will. None of West Indies’ bowlers found less movement in the air – Gabriel’s average swing was 0.6 degrees, but that mattered little as the 32-year-old castled two of England’s top three and had the third trapped plumb in front.
Having done for Dom Sibley on the first day, he took full advantage of Joe Denly’s struggle against the nip-backer to knock over his off-stump. Then, after feeding Rory Burns with four wide deliveries, he threw in a devastating sucker-punch.
No matter how long he went for, neither his pace nor energy waned. At one stage, he unfurled a full-length dive at mid-on, bringing with it a roar of approval from his teammates. Jason Holder may well take the acclaim but be in no doubt as to who set the initial tone for a fine bowling performance. It was fitting, ultimately, that it was Gabriel – the man who started it all off – who brought proceedings to a close.
Phil Simmons made sure to give his juggernaut every possible chance of proving his fitness, and he more than repaid that faith.
Shannon Gabriel ripped through England's top order
There are those who still confess to a puzzlement at how Jason Holder does it. They look simply at the speed gun and wonder how something so seemingly gentle could trigger such disarray. But ask any of the men he dismissed on this occasion: each one was defeated by late movement, either darting sharply into pads or snaking away to flick the outside edge. It was an exhibition of control on a helpful surface.
In the last two years, he has taken 26 Test wickets at an average of 14.9. Add 2018 into the equation as well, and that record improves further to 59 at 13.5. These were his best figures as a Test cricketer, his seventh five-wicket haul as captain – the same number that Courtney Walsh managed. Ahead of him, just three men: Bishan Bedi, Richie Benaud, Imran Khan.
For all the talk in recent years of West Indies as a dwindling five-day force, get this into your head: Holder has the record of an all-timer, not to mention a supreme character.
Speaking to The Cricketer ahead of the series, former West Indies off-spinner Omari Banks just about summed up Holder, an embodiment of leadership.
“The class that he’s able to articulate what he’s saying with speaks volumes for his family and who he is as a person. It speaks volumes for the culture and environment that he grew up in back in Barbados,” Banks said.
“He’s inspiring not only a region, but people all over the world with the great things that he’s done. He’s kind of similar in some respects to what Viv Richards meant to the Caribbean back in the 1970s and 1980s, and the stuff that he stood up for – for black people all over the world, against apartheid and these kinds of things.
“To be able to go out there and not only perform in the team, but to be internationally one of the best allrounders in world cricket, when you can do stuff like that and you have the personality where you can articulate yourself, I think you’re going to be listened to and heard. He’s a stand-up guy, he’s a balanced guy.”
Once the comparisons with Stokes had come to an end and the action was able to begin, the world’s top-ranked allrounder did what he does: quietly going about his business with a quite ruthless efficiency and no lack of skill.
Holder, the world's top-ranked allrounder, was on fine form
Since 2002, neutral umpires have stood at both ends in Test matches around the world. That regulation, for the time being at least, has been relaxed during this coronavirus era.
In Richards Kettleborough and Illingworth, the game has two of its finest officials on show for the first Test of this unusual summer.
And of all the oddities to get used to, the sight of Kettleborough erring on three separate occasions was among the most disconcerting. Quite simply, he so rarely makes a mistake. Watching on television, Burns’ lbw perhaps looked a little legside on first viewing and, given Gabriel’s angle from round the wicket, the umpire’s logic was certainly visible. For Crawley and Archer, though, both looked adjacent on first viewing and were proven to be so.
Illingworth, too, had a pair of calls overturned, with John Campbell correctly reviewing an lbw call after being given out from over the wicket, before he was reprieved once more after shouldering arms.
What does that tell us? Not much, in all honesty. Only that umpires are human, and that just as England’s batting looked fragile and West Indies’ fielding rusty, they too will need time to work their way back up to speed.
By the end of Mark Wood’s first over, he had breached the 94mph barrier. By the time the sides left the field shortly afterwards, his battle with Shai Hope was developing into the most intriguing of this Test so far.
Hope, in no kind of form at Test level, did more than simply survive the onslaught, playing Wood with as much sign of relative comfort as might be reasonably anticipated from a slingshot action delivering regular thunderbolts; he averaged speeds of 92.5mph through that spell.
Whether it was the right way for England to go is a question that will be debated over the coming days. Wood and Jofra Archer, watchable though they were, found less assistance off the surface and through the air than their West Indian counterparts.
Their lengths were shorter than those of Kemar Roach, Gabriel and Holder. They didn’t bowl badly, but the challenges they posed were noticeably different to those they had faced earlier with the bat.
Dare I say, conditions that Stuart Broad might have thrived in? That, for the time being, is immaterial. At the very least, this was enthralling, a nod to what is hoped might be possible when England travel abroad...
While the Test started yesterday, it clicked into gear on the field today.
Yet, it was a line from Nasser Hussain on Wednesday at the end of the series’ opening montage that rung true.
“The West Indies Cricket Board and their players take a lot of credit for coming over when the numbers were as high as they’d ever been, when the BAME community were being hit so hard,” he said.
“For a West Indies cricketer to pick up a newspaper in Barbados or wherever and say: ‘You know what, I’m going to go over to England and play Test match cricket in this sort of environment with no one watching,’ I think we should never ever forget that – both Pakistan and West Indies, we applaud your bravery really, for coming over and putting cricket first.”
And with that in mind, it is hard not to admire the way in which they have gone about their work thus far. Plans to individual batsmen have been spot on and they were executed with aplomb.
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