Watch cricket video highlights of West Indies tour of England 2024 1st test between England vs West Indies. Venue of the match will be Lord’s.
Pitch and Weather: The forecast calls for chilly, sporadic showers, and unimpressive weather. With the old cliche that Lord’s is a place where you look up, not down, all of this bodes rather well for the quick bowlers on show. But even by the flat-decked repute of the ancient venue, this season has been taking the Michael, as Glamorgan’s Sam Northeast can confirm, having surpassed the previous best score ever achieved in NW8, Graham Gooch’s memorable 333 in April. In May, Jayden Seales’s Sussex team was thoroughly outmatched by Middlesex at Lord’s, with 18 wickets falling in four days.
The unfortunate absence of Kemar Roach, who suffered a knee injury while serving with Surrey as a county player, hasn’t diminished the quiet confidence of a West Indies team that may be too dependent on the tenacity of Kraigg Brathwaite at the top but has more than enough bowling weapons to give Stokes’ batsmen a real run for their money. The difficulty is in the batting, as it has in many of the previous meetings. Four of the top six will have played nine Tests between them, with Mikyle Louis, the first player from St. Kitts to obtain a Test cap, set to make his debut at the top of the order. Kevin Sinclair lost to Gudakesh Motie for the lone spinner’s spot; Motie’s recent white-ball cricket triumph over England’s hitters might be the decisive factor.
Not a Foakes, not a Bairstow, nor a Tom Hartley, not a Mark Wood. With Bazball 2.0 getting ready to go live, just two of those names are probably going to be on the England roster once more. Rather, bring back Harry Brook at No. 5, who was unable to participate in the India tour because of his grandmother’s passing. Also, welcome back Jamie Smith and Atkinson from Surrey, whose reputation has grown since Rob Key saw him reach an incredibly quick century for the England Lions in Sri Lanka two winters ago. Embarrassingly, the man he has replaced is the one who keeps wicket for his county.
However, Shoaib Bashir is also not a lock for a starting spot at Somerset. Rather than being disappointed by the youngsters’ present professional position, England is more enthused about the ceiling on these guys’ potential. However, this is not the case for Chris Woakes, who is back and now owns the Compton-Miller medal following his exploits in the Ashes last summer. Though he isn’t as reliable as Anderson in the long run, he has an average of 11.33 from five prior Test matches at Lord’s. Getting the W is still important because England hasn’t won a complete series since 2022.
England will have been extremely well served if Atkinson can have even half the impact that Shamar Joseph did in his first Test series. Joseph’s explosive initial performance in Adelaide, when he took five wickets in a passionate personal show, was dwarfed by the raw, fast-paced raucousness of his subsequent performance in Brisbane, where Australia lost players to all four corners of their erstwhile stronghold at the Gabba.
His 7 for 68 in 11.5 merciless straight overs was crowned with a winning run that would go down in history, as well as the flattening of Josh Hazlewood’s off stump. Of course, the expectations will be different now, and his wicketless one-off showing for Lucknow in the IPL this year served an early warning that his periods won’t all be as blatantly happy. However, England will be informed that he is a significant prong in a dangerous speed attack when he arrives.
Yes, sure, there’s really just one fast bowler on everyone’s mind at the moment, but because Anderson despises attention, it makes sense to give it to two of the most recent additions to the Test team. For the better part of a year, Gus Atkinson has been England’s rising star. However, after carrying drinks during two senior tours of India, one before Christmas for that miserable World Cup campaign and the other after Christmas for a slightly less depressing 4-1 Test loss, Lord’s will serve as the grand unveiling of a quick who has many well-informed spectators extremely excited.
In addition to his effortless qualities as a fast bowler who can reach speeds of ninety miles per hour, Atkinson stands out for his hunger for the big time. His greatest performances thus far have been when he has had the most to prove, most notably during an intense match against Jos Buttler in the previous year’s Hundred. Atkinson has been given first dibs on the new era, but Dillon Pennington and Matthew Potts are waiting in the wings for the moment when Anderson has bowled his last.
In any case, some players from the West Indies have stated that they plan to “ruin” Anderson’s goodbye, demonstrating that they are not letting the sentimentality of the event distract them from their goal. With a shaky outlook for the upcoming week, hopefully the weather doesn’t get there first. By the time he bowls his last over at Lord’s, there will be sufficient moisture in the air.
West Indies, the current Richards-Botham Trophy holders, have not lost a home series against England in twenty years and counting. They will have a fast-bowling unit that would make many of their Test opponents jealous, as well as a core of important senior campaigners, not the least of whom is the returning former captain Jason Holder, if the challenge in inclement English weather proves to be somewhat more difficult.
How can the West Indies disrupt that future momentum? Probably more than a lot of other teams could manage. If England’s strategy has essentially consisted of an excessive amount of positive energy, they will be facing a squad that has demonstrated the capacity to improve their own performance when facing these specific opponents.
This led to their changing of the guard, with Ben Foakes fired for failing to reach the high notes of aggressiveness required by the team culture, and Bazball’s initial pin-up, Jonny Bairstow, having to accept the reality of his diminishing returns. Twelve months and just one home Test later, Stuart Broad has also strolled off the stage, indicating that this England team’s future will almost certainly arrive before it has a chance to gather its thoughts.
That’s not exactly where England are now following a tumultuous winter trip of India. Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum, however, find themselves in unusually urgent need of a series win following their 2-2 Ashes draw and a reckless share of the spoils in New Zealand in February. This is an odd situation for a team whose early success was largely attributable to their disregard for the end game.
The senior citizens of British athletics have already experienced a very emotional week. Andy Murray let go at Wimbledon on Thursday, saying farewell to Centre Court and acknowledging that his body could no longer support his unwavering spirit. In contrast, Mark Cavendish and Lewis Hamilton demonstrated at Saint Vulbas that same day what a champion’s attitude can still accomplish when fate ultimately decides that you have endured enough purgatory three days later.
And so, on Wednesday, we head to Lord’s, where another unwavering fixture of the British sports summer will start his own five-day farewell. James Anderson, like the three guys previously described, has never known when to give up, and he wouldn’t have any cause to if it weren’t for time passing. When asked if he was comfortable with the decision to pension him off after today, his 188th Test, especially after last week’s outstanding performance of 7 for 35 for Lancashire at Southport, he waved, “I really don’t have a choice, do I?”
However, as Anderson may recall from his own England debut, which took place on this same field 21 years and a few weeks ago, international sports must eventually revert to being a game for young men. Back then, even after taking 10 wickets in England’s previous Test match in Sydney in January 2003, it was Andrew Caddick who never again represented his country in cricket. The only real indicators of development become stagnation and dissatisfaction if opportunity never comes knocking for a new generation.
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