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A graphical view of England vs. West Indies, 4th Test Match, London, played 19-21 August 2004
by Jack Solock


Scorecard:England v West Indies

England completed their magical, undefeated summer with a thumping 3 day, 10 wicket victory over West Indies at the Oval. For England, it was a record tying seventh victory in a row, equaling a streak set in 1885-1888 (vs. Australia, though those were Test matches in name only by modern standards) and equaled in 1928-1929 (vs. Australia and West Indies). England's Test team, for the calendar year, are now 10 wins, 0 losses, 1 draw. West Indies, moving in much the opposite direction, lost their fourth in a row, leaving their Test record for the calendar year at 1 win, 8 losses, 3 draws.

 

graph

 

The graph shows an England innings with four big steps to 470, the first being the 146 run fourth wicket partnership between Captain Michael Vaughan and Test debutant Ian Bell, the second a 77 run 6th wicket partnership between Andrew Flintoff and Geraint Jones, the third an 87 run partnership for the 8th wicket between Ashley Giles and Matthew Hoggard, and the 4th (the final ignominy from a West Indian point of view) a 60 run 10th wicket partnership between Steve Harmison and James Anderson. All 11 England batsmen, as well as extras, reached double figures, the first time they had done this since the 1928-29 tour to Australia (when they did it twice in timeless matches--only in the second Test of that series did extras go into double figures as well!). The telling part of this innings is that the big partnerships came at 64/3, 236/5, 321/7, and 410/9. Three of the four partnerships came in the second half of the innings, again demonstrating England's dominance in this series. England scored 236 runs for the first 5 wickets in 69 overs, and 234 runs for the last 5 in 54.5. It was the second time in the series that England had scored more (or very nearly more) for the last five wickets than for the first five (See below).

 

Presented with this daunting total, and the way it was achieved, it is not terribly surprising that West Indies collapsed in less time than the last half of the England innings. It is quite staggering to realise that England's No. 6-11 batsmen could score 82 more runs in 18 more overs than the entire West Indies team.

 

Following on, West Indies were able to do better, just better enough to force England to bat again, avoiding an innings defeat to end a whitewash. Chris Gayle's two 50 partnerships (with Sylvester Joseph and Dwayne Bravo) were at the heart of West Indies batting in the follow on innings. Still, in this innings, as in the first, West Indies were unable to bat the equivalent of a day (a shortcoming that plagued them throughout the series). England, relying on incisive bowling from Steve Harmison (6/46 in the first innings) and James Anderson (4/52 in the second innings), finished the win in style.

 

At the end of it all, England had repaid 10 straight West Indies victories and two blackwashes in the two series between the teams in 1984 in England and 1985/86 in the West Indies with 2 near whitewashes of their own (Brian Lara's world record score at Antigua in April being the only roadblock). What goes around, comes around.

 

Twice in this series, England had destroyed West Indies with more (or almost more) runs for the last 5 wickets (4 in one case) than for the first five wickets.

 

graph

 

The bar chart shows a simple comparison of the runs for the 1st 5 wickets v the runs for the rest of the wickets in the first innings of each match. At Edgbaston (2 in the graph) England declared at 566/9, while at Old Trafford (3) West Indies declared at 395/9. Order of batting is not reflected in this graph. The bar chart only pertains to 1st innings because they are less likely to be effected by time constraints and often have great sway over the ultimate outcome of matches. In the first match (1) at Lords, England won the old fashion way, bludgeoning over 500 runs for the first five wickets, stamping their authority on the match, even though the last 5 wickets went down for less than 50. West Indies, in each of their first innings, showed signs of lower wicket collapses, the Edgbaston match being the worst. In both matches where England's last 5 wickets clicked (and West Indies bowling and fielding failed miserably), England ended up with huge wins. West Indies showed a little fight at Edgbaston, hardly any at the Oval (4). Such comparisons of top and lower wicket production can be useful in understanding the anatomy of why one team wins and another loses. One of the main problems with West Indies bowling in this series was that they were unable to penetrate when they needed to after most of the hard work had already been done. England had only one "Australian" type victory in this match, in the sense that they dominated from beginning to end, and that was at Lords.

 

Sources for this article:
Derek Pringle and Scyld Berry--London Daily Telegraph
Tony Cozier--Barbados Daily Nation (Bridgetown)
Liam Brickhill--Wisden Cricinfo
Wisden Cricinfo and cricketarchive.com scorecards.

 


(Article: Copyright © 2004 Jack Solock)

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