ENG vs WI | Ageas Bowl Day 5 Talking Points - Brathwaite’s long wait and England's feeling of what could have been

Brief scores: West Indies 200/6 (Jermaine Blackwood 95 and Jofra Archer 3/45) and 318 all-out beat England 204 all-out and 313 all-out by 4 wickets

There’s no definitive answer to it but if Jason Holder’s comments are to be believed, as it should, Brathwaite, whose 65 in the first innings marked a renaissance for his dwindling Test career, is set for another long spell. Brathwaite is an old-school Test-match batsman, whose ability to soak in the pressure with a blunt method reaped dividends three years ago in England and his county stints were always highly regarded. However, in between that, the failure to contribute to scoring enough runs has been a talking point for a long time. Kieron Powell even put up an Instagram post yesterday asking for the logic behind giving such a long rope to Brathwaite, and that seems a genuinely strong query. The four he scored in the second innings will put him in a rather uncomfortable situation.

This loss would haunt England for a long time and not merely because it came to a rather ‘inferior’ side like West Indies. That after squandering the opportunity to regain the Ashes last home summer, they might as well fail to regain the Wisden Trophy in a series that has caught eyeballs from all around the world. This first Test would not spell a disaster, for England are very much capable of winning the last two and change the course of the series for good, but how has this English side, who take pride in their resources, left such a bitter taste. 

As someone wrote on Twitter, Stuart Broad, despite not being a part of the side, is the definitive MVP of the match as we would never know what James Anderson’s impact would have been with Broad at the other end. Sure enough, England are preparing for the next Ashes in Australia, by going for pace, but at what cost? The six home Test matches are genuinely the most buzzing and exciting prospect, something that they will now know without Broad’s presence. Now that the Test is over, England will have to reassess their plans and bring in Broad for the last two Tests at Old Trafford. For this was possibly unexpected and a strong reality check for their plans.

An unbeaten 112 against England in April 2015 in just his sixth Test brought Jermaine Blackwood to the forefront but his career has been a series of disappointments since then. A good two years after that promising beginning in Antigua, he was dropped from the side only to get a sudden lifeline in the India series last August. That he made it to the XI for the first Test at the Ageas Bowl came after he topped the run-charts in the Caribbean's domestic four-day competition. Even Windies decided to leave the promise of  Joshua da Silva for Blackwood’s introduction to the set-up.

If that was the catalyst in propelling the Jamaican to score the number of runs he did today can be hard to ascertain, it can be said with certainty that he played a career-defining innings today, one that will be remembered for a long long time. Not just blunting the raw pace of Archer and Wood, Blackwood also played James Anderson to his merit, smashing runs at will. Not that everything he did today he deserved, because of the lifeline he was given during the course of the flawed innings. For instance, he was dropped by Ben Stokes on 5 before being given a reprieve by Jos Buttler down the leg side. Zak Crawley fumbled a run-out chance and at the end, Stokes bowled a no-ball to deduce it down to blut. All that ensured his progress but Blackwood was a notch above the rest and that became possible because of his persistency. He would be kicking himself for throwing his wicket away right at the end, though.