In the first ‘Raise The Bat’ Test, hosts England had to answer to the supreme spell of fast bowling by West Indies captain Jason Holder, who picked six wickets in the first innings.
Later, opener Kraig Brathwaite and Shane Dowrich put the visitors in a comfortable position with a handsome lead of 114 runs in the first innings.
Despite a resolute effort from the English top order, West Indies’ pace attack kept their side in the hunt by picking up wickets at regular intervals.
At stumps on Day 4, the hosts salvaged a lead of 170 runs with a couple of wickets in hand. The match is now brilliantly poised for a fascinating final day end.
However, WI captain Holder achieved a special feat in the process picking his opposite number, Ben Stokes, in both innings of the game, on Saturday.
In the first innings, Holder curtailed Stokes’ determined knock as the latter nicked one to the wicket-keeper, Dowrich.
Then, in the second innings of the Test match, Holder yet again had the wood over Stokes. The stand-in captain, who was dismissed again in his 40s, giving a catch to Shai Hope at slips.
In the process, Holder became the only captain to dismiss his counterpart twice in a Test match, thrice in his career.
The likes of Gary Sobers, Shakib-al-Hasan and Richie Benaud have achieved the feat twice. Further, Holder now equalled Imran Khan in the tally of most scalps of the opposite number.
Both Holder and Imran have 15 scalps to their name where they picked the wickets of their counterpart, second-most after Benaud’s tally of 18 scalps in Test cricket.
