West Indies head coach, Phil Simmons feels that the match yesterday against England was lost due to Stuart Broad’s performance with the new ball on day four.
England leveled the three-Test series with a 113-run win in the second match and Simmons spoke to the media following the loss.
He explained “I think through the five days we played some good cricket, for me we lost control over the game in five or six overs of the new ball yesterday evening when we were in a good position to bat through the day and then bat some of today and close off the game but the spell from Broad is where I think we lost the game and we lost our way there and couldn’t hold it back.”
In that period, West Indies were in control at 227 for four heading into the final session but were bowled out for 287 in the session before England closed the day on 37 for two. England eventually pressed on to set the visitors 312 to win or survive around 85 overs.
Simmons revealed the plan was to approach the game until Tea on the final day and then decide if to go for the win or play of the draw but the start did not go according to plan.
“I think it is disappointing, I think the way we started chasing 300, if we batted normally between when we started batting and tea time then we could have seen what was happening, the plan was to see out Tea and see what we had left to chase and decide if we are going to go at it or bat out the day but the way we started the innings did not go well for us and we had to be fighting to save the game,” he stated.
Reflecting on the match, Simmons posited that one of the areas that he believes could have made the difference is the batsmen carrying on to score centuries since five batsmen scored fifties. Looking at England’s approach, Ben Stokes (176) and Dom Sibley (120) forged a double century stand that propelled them to a massive first innings total.
“The only thing I can see is we had five-six fifties and no one has converted to hundreds, I think that’s where things lie because had we continued from 200 and something for four yesterday and one of the guys in got a hundred, another hundred-run partnership because we had two or three 50-run partnerships so these are the little things that help you control the Test match and we had things under control up to that point,” he pointed out.
