England 293 for 6 (Crawley 76, Root 68, Pope 57, Brook 50, Motie 2-25) lead West Indies 121 (Atkinson 7-45) by 172 runs
Stokes’ first international innings of the season lasted only 11 balls, with Motie knocking his middle stump out of the ground. Bowling his first over of the morning session, Motie tossed the ball up and found sharp turn after landing it on a footmark. It spun back past Stokes’ bat, leaving him open-mouthed before trudging back to the pavilion.
And in the penultimate over before the interval, Root was left smiling in disbelief after losing his off stump to the same bowler. Motie went wide on the crease and bowled his arm ball with an upright seam. Root shaped to punch into the off side but the delivery drifted in sharply then deviated even further off the pitch, beating the bat and crashing into the stump.
With an overnight lead of 66 and only three wickets down in their first innings, England made steady progress during the first hour. Brook dominated the scoring in a 91-run partnership with Root, scoring heavily square of the wicket as if to demonstrate the slow nature of this Lord’s pitch.
He brought up his half-century – his 12th fifty-plus score in 13 Tests – with a back-foot punch for two, but did not add another run. He fell in tame fashion when top-edging a hook through to Joshua da Silva off a wide Alzarri Joseph bouncer: it was a reminder of Brook’s mixed record against the short ball, which Australia exposed during last summer’s Ashes.
But Root progressed serenely, increasing his tempo through the session after a relatively slow start to his innings. Like Brook, he scored most of his runs square of the wicket, the highlight being a left-right punch off Joseph: he rolled his wrists on a pull off a short ball, then whipped the follow-up inswinger off his pads to bring up consecutive boundaries.
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