Ollie Pope rode his luck to hit 121 and lead England to a rapid 416 on Day 1 of the second Test against the West Indies at Trent Bridge.
Dropped on 46 and 54, Pope compiled his sixth Test century as the hosts built on Ben Duckett’s sparkling 71 to establish a strong position.
Put into bat, England lost Zak Crawley off the third ball of the game, caught at slip by Alick Athanaze off Alzarri Joseph. But Duckett smashed four boundaries in a row to get started and sped to his fifty off just 32 balls.
The left-hander looked well on course for his fourth Test century until he pushed at a full ball from Shamar Joseph and nicked a low catch to Jason Holder at second slip.
Pope, dropped by Athanaze at gully just before lunch, should also have been caught by Holder after the interval before Joe Root, on 14, top-edged an attempted pull off Jayden Seales and skied a catch to Alzarri.
Harry Brook moved briskly to 36 which included a six over backward point before he edged a paddle sweep off off-spinner Kevin Sinclair to Kirk McKenzie at short leg, as the bowler celebrated with a backward somersault.
Pope, however, had grown in confidence and moved to his hundred with a crisp four through the square-leg region before removing his helmet and raising his bat to
the crowd.
He edged a catch to Kavem Hodge off Alzarri, but captain Ben Stokes made a welcome return to form with the bat, hitting eight fours in his 69 before being caught off part-time spinner Hodge.
Keeper-batter Jamie Smith (36) and seamer all-rounder Chris Woakes (37) chipped in down the order and England will feel confident of taking advantage of a positive start to move 2-0 up in the series following their innings victory in the first Test at Lord’s.
England made one change from the side that won the opening Test by an innings at Lord’s. Pacer Mark Wood came in for the now-retired James Anderson.
The Windies were forced into one last-minute alteration with Sinclair replacing left-arm spinner Gudakesh Motie, who was down with illness. They were scheduled to go in unchanged in this game.
If the West Indies’ decision to bowl first on a good batting wicket looked bizarre, their bowling was extremely poor. They had the ideal start when Crawley departed in the very first over of the game, but since then, they kept losing the advantage with their lousy bowling, particularly to Duckett.
Their three frontline quicks — Alzarri, Seales and Holder — conceded as many as 168 in 30 overs with only two maidens, which underlines how erratic they were and had no control whatsoever on their lines and lengths. It was due to Shamar bowling with some discipline late in the first session that reduced England’s scoring rate to an extent.
At one point, with Duckett dealing in boundaries, England were scoring in excess of eight runs an over.
There’s more reason to worry for the Windies as Shamar walked off the ground after halfway into his 12th over, which was also the 53rd of England’s first innings. It was the same left hamstring — which had troubled him at Lord’s last week — that seemed to be bugging him here as well.
Captain Kraigg Brathwaite had to bowl the remaining three balls of that over. Shamar, in fact, was seen struggling with his line in his second spell after five tight overs.
