As Kraigg Brathwaite and his West Indies players lined up to give Jimmy Anderson a guard of honour at Lord’s last week, they could have been forgiven for harbouring the odd envious thought. The respect out in the middle was genuine, no question, but one or two might have pondered the disparity of resource and opportunity on display.
Anderson was a freak, of course, that hunger undimmed to the point of having to be stood down by the end. But underpinning his remarkable career was the broader security of England’s central contract system – deals worth about £500,000 a year, around a third less than their peak in 2016 when white‑ball deals were carved out – and a canvas of 188 Tests in 21 years on which to paint those 704 glorious brush strokes.
West Indies have central contracts too, but they are worth around £150,000 per year and only then for a select few. In a high-cost, low-income part of the world like the Caribbean, it is little wonder many of their brightest talents have been unable to resist the tractor beam of T20 cricket. Take Nicholas Pooran, arguably the most naturally gifted batter from the region at present and now in his peak years aged 29. The Trinidadian has played just five first-class games in his life and not one of them has been a Test.
England also have the volume of fixtures that allows them to invest in a player such as Zak Crawley – rewards finally being reaped – and boldly state they are using the next 17 Tests to build towards the Ashes in 2025- 26. West Indies, by contrast, are never quite sure whether to stick or twist on individuals – see Tagenarine Chanderpaul, son of Shiv, recently dropped after 10 Tests – because they live off scraps by way of fixtures. This is a rare three‑match series amid a measly diet of two-match affairs, while between now and March 2027, the end of the current cycle, they have 18 Tests to England’s 33.
Bazball may not be everyone’s cup of tea but, in the words of Walter Sobchak, at least it’s an ethos. Forging one for a team that only comes together intermittently is far tougher, however, and why that thrilling eight-run victory over Australia at the Gabba this year was both a historic feat and a depressing outlier. Brathwaite is a captain as stoic as his batting suggests and so not one to gripe. But on the eve of this second Test at Trent Bridge, his side 1-0 down after Lord’s, he acknowledged the uphill struggle.
“It is a challenge,” said Brathwaite, whose 90 Test caps are another outlier in a team that otherwise boasts 158 combined. “I mean, we are longing for more Test cricket. I think the more you play it, you know, the faster you will learn. Obviously if it is drawn out over a long period of time, playing two Tests here, two Tests there, you will take longer to learn.
“The guys are learning, you know, that is the positive. But yes, we need more Tests. It would improve everything about the makeup of playing Test cricket because it’s always going to be tough playing international cricket. You get good periods, you get bad periods and the more often you play, you pretty much understand it better.”
In January, sitting 1-0 down to Australia, Brathwaite was able to motivate his troops using the words of Rodney Hogg. The former fast bowler had called their efforts in the first Test “pathetic” and curiously stated that simply the sight of past West Indies teams “in their Speedos” would intimidate opponents through their physiques. Brathwaite took great delight in flexing his biceps at the presentation in Brisbane, thanking Hogg for the pep talk after Shamar Joseph had gleefully ripped through their hosts.
No ex-England pro has fired up the tourists this time around. The closest to a barb was probably Matthew Hoggard who, in a press release for an after dinner speakers company, tipped England to (somehow) win “5-0”. Not that anyone noticed. Instead, motivation must come from the loss of 20 wickets for just 257 runs at Lord’s. Brathwaite and his men have to find a way to not simply soak up the pressure but put it back on their opponents. Given the captain is the only member of his top five north of five caps, it feels a tall order, however decent Mikyle Louis and Alick Athanaze briefly looked last week.
That said, the weather is set fair for the week and Trent Bridge has been pretty friendly to batters these past few summers. The tourists also face an attack which welcomes back the pace of Mark Wood but, with Gus Atkinson primed to take the new ball alongside Chris Woakes after doing so just four times for Surrey, and Shoaib Bashir yet to bowl in the series, feels a touch experimental. The big plus for England is Ben Stokes, whose return to bowling helps offset the drop-off in experience now that Anderson and Stuart Broad – due to have an end at the ground officially named after him this week – have signed off.
England: 1 Zak Crawley, 2 Ben Duckett, 3 Ollie Pope, 4 Joe Root, 5 Harry Brook, 6 Ben Stokes (capt), 7 Jamie Smith (wk), 8 Chris Woakes, 9 Gus Atkinson, 10 Mark Wood, 11 Shoaib Bashir
West Indies: 1 Kraigg Brathwaite (capt), 2 Mikyle Louis, 3 Kirk McKenzie, 4 Alick Athanaze, 5 Kavem Hodge, 6 Jason Holder, 7 Joshua Da Silva (wk), 8 Gudakesh Motie, 9 Alzarri Joseph, 10 Shamar Joseph, 11 Jayden Seales
Stokes insisted this was now England’s first-choice attack but he and Brendon McCullum have enough Tests between now and that self-imposed end game to rethink it if things don’t quite work out. West Indies, with the financial landscape tilted against them and fixtures growing thinner by year, would simply love to have that luxury.
