ENG vs WI | Twitter reacts to England’s valiant middle order keeping Windies at bay ahead of 'moving day'

‌The overnight batters Joe Root and Ollie Pope faced the heat from Shamar Joseph and Jayden Seales in the first half of the morning session with the latter losing his wicket. Harry Brook followed suit as Seales struck from the other end, reducing England to 54/5. England captain Ben Stokes stepped in yet again under pressure with Root handling business from the other side. The pair brought up 100 runs in the 21st over and accelerated further with the Yorkshireman racing to a half-century. The right and left-handed duo chalked up a hundred-run stand at the stroke of Lunch with England’s score reading 157/5 in 33 overs.

As the experienced tag team continued to steer the side, Alzarri’s short ball outwitted Stokes to break the 115-run stand. Jamie Smith accompanied Root and played an aggressive brand of cricket including a huge six off Alzarri. As the partnership grew to 62, Gudakesh Motie produced a peach to trap Root for 87 before rain caused a delay, summoning early Tea. 

The odd ball kept low as the third session began but Chris Woakes and Jamie opted for a watchful approach to negate the Windies bowlers. They converted the fifty-run stand to a century partnership before Shamar cleaned up Jamie five runs short of his maiden ton. Minute contributions from the last couple of wickets along with Woakes’ measured fifty, helped the Three Lions attain a 94-run lead as they finished at 376. 

Similar to their counterparts, the Windies lost a couple of early wickets to the new hard ball as Chris Woakes and Gus Atkinson found considerable seam movement to challenge the willow’s edges. However, Kirk McKenzie and Alick Athanaze withstood them for the remainder of the day with West Indies trailing by 61 runs at Stumps Day 2.

 24th bowler

Congrats

Dissappointment

Well played

So incosistent

Standing ovation

Hollies on feet

Unlucky

His reaction

Perfect one