England vs West Indies first test Review

So the first test of the summer is over and it very much turned out the way most people thought with an England win and despite a fight back for most of the 4^th day and the first hour of day 5. After that though Alistair Cook and Ian Bell put together a valuable hundred partnership and the rest as they say is history.

The one thing that every team knows about when they go to play at Lords is that it is a very difficult place to take 20 wickets and so it proved again. During the final couple of hours of the test match it was day 5 and the pitch (apart from the areas where the bowlers had run on to the pitch) was absolutely perfect for batting still which is not something that happens at most venues.

With the second test just a few days away it will be interesting to see how the West Indies are going to change their team up and how they are going to begin to fight back. The pitch at Trent Bridge definitely will not be as good as the Lords one and you should see some spin there definitely on days 4 or 5 so Graeme Swann should be able to play a bigger role than this test match.

With 2 more test matches against the West Indies coming up and a bout of good weather heading our way it should definitely be some fun times ahead and there will be good opportunities for the rest of the England team that haven’t done great on my marks out of 10 (see below) to get some good scores before the South Africans arrive here later this summer.

Marks out of 10

A. Strauss – 8

A. Cook – 7

J. Trott – 6

K. Pietersen – 6

I. Bell – 9

J. Bairstow – 6

M. Prior – 6

T. Bresnan – 6

S. Broad – 9

G. Swann – 5

J. Anderson – 7