West Indies vs. England: James Anderson bugs Windies with late wickets

West Indies vs. England 1st Test, day one

• Where: Kensington Oval, Barbados
• West Indies first innings: 264-8
• England first innings: yet to bat
• Day two start time: 2pm GMT
• TV channel: live on Sky Sports Cricket

James Anderson bit into the West Indies batting order with three important wickets in the final session on day one of the first Test match in Barbados.

The hosts finished on 264-8 and Anderson’s figures of 4-33 will have boosted the spirits of team-mate Stuart Broad, who’d come under attack of a different sort 24 hours earlier.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Bed bugs

The Nottinghamshire pace bowler was left out of the XI and according to BBC cricket correspondent Jonathan Agnew bed bugs might have been partly to blame.

“He [Broad] has got some terrible bed-bug bites, and on quite a sensitive area,” said Agnew, who apparently was tipped off by the bowler’s mum. “He went to bed fully padded up, as it were, with his whites on. Unfortunately it sounds as if a few have gone into his jockstrap.”

Sam Curran was picked as the second seamer ahead of Broad, who later posted on Twitter to say it was balls to suggest bed bugs had anything to do with his omission. He said: “I was getting eaten alive, managed to move rooms, no more bites. No disruptions.”

Broad’s denial was endorsed by a statement from the ECB, who said: “It is nonsense to suggest that some players have been sleeping on mattresses outside their rooms. This is not true.”

Solid start

Whatever the truth of the story, there was no doubting the impact made by Anderson in the final session of an intriguing first day that initially had belonged to the West Indies.

Shai Hope, Roston Chase and Shimron Hetmyer all passed 50 runs, after the opening pair of Kraigg Brathwaite and John Campbell, had put on 53 for the first wicket. Neither was able to reach a half-century, however, with Campbell falling for 44 on his debut.

Fightback

Ben Stokes dismissed Braithwaite for 40 and then trapped Darren Bravo leg before for two, but a partnership of 66 between Chase and Hetmyer took the Windies to 240-4 before England fought back in the final session with the new ball.

First Anderson had Chase caught by Joe Root for 54 and he then dismissed Shane Dowrich and captain Jason Holder for a duck and five respectively. Stokes had Kemar Roach caught off the last ball to leave the Windies 264-8 at stumps.

Jimmy’s joy

“I thought it was going to be another quiet game for me at tea,” said Anderson, whose dismissal of Hope was his first Test wicket in 341 balls. “That last session with the second new ball got us right back in the game.

“It was a good wicket to bat on. There’s wasn’t too much off the wicket and it was a bit slow, but there was a bit of swing for most of the day… and we know in cricket if you stay in the game, the second new ball can bring two or three wickets.

“We bowled really well with that second new ball and got our rewards.”

Day two of the first Test starts at 2pm UK time and is live on Sky Sports Cricket.