Wickets tumble on breathless opening day at Lord's
Thu, Sep 7, '17
After a sedate start, this developed in to a breathless day of Test match cricket. Fourteen wickets fell in all and by the close, with bad light ending play prematurely, England had stuttered to 46 for 4 in response to Windies' 123 all out. Under leaden skies, and with the floodlights on for most of the day, these were not conditions made for batting and the seamers on both sides exploited that to the full. This is still anyone's game.
It did not look like that would be the case once the tourists, who had won the toss and decided to bat, were dismissed so cheaply. Ben Stokes took six wickets in a marathon 14.3-over spell during the afternoon as Windies collapsed from 78 for 2, losing their last eight wickets for 45 runs. By the close, they had fought back through an excellent new ball spell from Kemar Roach and Shannon Gabriel and good back up from captain Jason Holder to keep themselves well in the game.
