Much of the talk is now going to be about how well the West Indies played, and quite rightly, because in terms of professionalism and application there was clear water between this team and the last few Caribbean sides to tour here. The daft shots and buffet bowling weren’t entirely eradicated, but were far less significant.

Darren Sammy, their captain, has instilled a telling degree of grit, but from their point of view it’s a shame he also has to bowl. Had West Indies fielded a proper third seamer, in place of his dobblers, they might still have won.

Given how finely balanced was the match in today’s morning session, how must West Indies supporters have ached for another seventy five runs in the bank. And how ruefully must they have reflected upon the career choices of Chris Gayle, Ramnaresh Sarwan, and Dwayne Bravo. Despite being three of the four best batsmen in the West Indies, none of them are playing in this series, due to a complex series of contractual wrangles, perceived slights, and hissy fits. It’s an awful shame.

Although it’s easy for England followers to sound patronising about the West Indies, that can be a bit misleading. Our relationship with their nation’s cricket is not, say, that of a father towards a louche and feckless teenage son, but derives rather from deference and respect, because most of us grew up in awe of a West Indies side who bestrode the world like a Colossus. Instead, we’re like Beatles fans dismayed by Paul McCartney’s solo work – anguished at the decline of a demi-god.

English cricket fans hate South Africa, and could never shed a tear for Australia, whatever calamity befell them. But with the West Indies, it’s different, partly because world cricket needs a strong and vibrant Caribbean side. Ours is not only an Anglo-Antipodean-Asian game: West Indies are an integral and indispensable element of the equation.

Meanwhile, England’s batsmen did plenty in this match to dispel our reputation as poor target-chasers. Cook and Bell did a fine job under genuine pressure, especially since memories of Abu Dhabi must still have been fresh in their minds.

Hair-splitters will criticise England for making such heavy weather of defeating a low-ranked opponent. But as we argued last week, our team were always in a no-win situation. If we’d thrashed them inside three days, critics would say it counted for nothing because it was too easy.

Tim Bresnan had his first really quiet game for England and may lose his place for the next test. If so, it seems harsh, because he bowled several very incisive spells, and overall, much better than his figures suggested. If bowlers should get the axe for an occasional modest test match – and Bresnan was due one – Stuart Broad would never have made it past 2009. From where I’m sitting, Bresnan is a better option than Finn in a team also including Broad: he makes things happen, he has presence, and a different trajectory and style from this immediate rivals.

Kevin Pietersen had a strange game. From having played sublimely in Colombo, here at Lord’s he returned to his most frustrating sclerotic. I think we just have to accept that this is the cricketer KP has become, and will remain for the rest of his career. He will oscillate, for no obvious reason, from mastery to haphazardness. For that reason, might it be better for him to swap places in the batting order with Ian Bell?

You can’t help but feel that West Indies’ best chance of landing a punch on England came and went in this match. The door was open, but Cook and Bell closed it. Our ultimately comfortable victory should in theory lay the platform for a three-nil whitewash. Over confident and arrogant to say so? Our predictions last week were some way off the mark, but England still won.

Maxie Allen

England 10-2 (one of which was Anderson)  need 181 runs to win

We’re not sure what to say about Sunday’s play. There are two ways of looking at it. You could say that the Windies fought hard, but England did well to (finally) bowl the opposition out on a flat and slow wicket; or you could say that the Windies have put themselves into a position from which they might win.

At the end of the day, England need 181 runs to win tomorrow. It should be a walk in the park. The pitch is blameless and the Windies attack, Kemar Roach apart, is pretty average. However, England will be nervous. They’ve already lost their skipper – and they almost lost Jonathan Trott too. They’ve also got their dismal run chase against Pakistan in the UAE in the backs of their minds.

However, tomorrow is another day. The weather forecasters say it will be warmer; the light will be better; batting should be a lot easier than it was in that mini-session at the end of the day, when the Windies bowlers knew England’s batsmen were on a hiding to nothing. England really should win – and win comfortably too. My gut tells me there will be a wobble at some point, but we’ll get home with five wickets to spare.

However, you never know in cricket. After Surrey wrote Otis Gibson’s team talk for him – offering people with tickets for the test match free entry to the Oval this afternoon (they were expecting an early finish) – the Windies will be pumped up.

If they do manage to pull off a magnificent victory tomorrow, we’ll look back on Sunday’s play and marvel at their determination. If England win comfortably, we’ll all say: “yeah, the pitch was so flat even Australia would have made a few runs on it; Chanderpaul and Samuels were just delaying the inevitable”. As I say, we’ll talk again tomorrow.

James Morgan

West Indies 243 & 120-4. England 398

England are still in control of this test match, but they aren’t quite in the unassailable position we’d hoped for at the start of play. It’s all because of two things: firstly, the ball actually swung for the Windies on Saturday, and secondly they have a batsman that seems impossible to dismiss – his name is Shiv Chanderpaul (you might have heard of him).

Let’s deal with the first point. England lost wickets at regular intervals because the Windies suddenly found the movement that Anderson and Co got on Thursday. People talk about visiting teams struggling against the swinging ball in England, but the truth is that all batsmen, of all abilities, of all nationalities, struggle when the ball swings – even English ones.

Let’s face it. It’s bloody hard to bat when the ball is moving around. You want to get on the front foot and drive, but every time you do so you risk being caught at slip. Today proved that. A good ball at Lord’s in May is a good ball at Lord’s in May, whether it’s Tim Bresnan facing the delivery or Adrian Barath.

Batsmen are oft criticised for the slightest mistake, but the truth is that sometimes bowlers bowl deliveries that get you out. Batting can sometimes seem like 50% luck. You either nick it or you don’t. Yesterday Andrew Strauss didn’t. Today he did. Yesterday England’s batsmen survived the close shaves, but today their luck deserted them.

Of course, some credit must go to the Windies bowlers too – they bowled persistently and didn’t let their heads drop, which helps – but tell me honestly that they didn’t bowl well yesterday too. They simply got the breaks today. And fair play to them.

Now I must come to Chanderpaul. Shiv crab / limpet / barnacle (insert your own crustacean here) Chanderpaul. Rarely has a batsman looked so ugly, been so persistently tedious to watch, nor been so consistently bloody brilliant, than Shiv Chanderpaul. The man is a total legend.

Chanderpaul thoroughly deserves his ranking as the number one batsman in the world. He is totally unflappable and his powers of concentration make Gary Kasparov, the chess grand master, look inadequate. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that Chanderpaul is Jonathan Trott times one hundred: He’s just as horrible to watch, but he’s been doing it a hundred times longer – and in a batting side that would fall to pieces without him. How exactly do you get the bugger out?

When Shiv Chanderpaul was a boy – just knee-high to a Gus Logie – he would have doubtless seen a cricket coaching manual at some point. The manual would have said ‘stand sideways on’, ‘don’t walk across your stumps’, and other precious titbits of information that have served batsmen well for decades.

Chanderpaul must have said something along the lines of ‘Nah, sod that. Reggae aint Mozart but it sounds pretty good to me; I’m gonna do exactly the opposite of what this manual says. It’ll work’. Well, it sure does.

Without Chanderpaul the Windies would have lost this match already. The rest of the batting line-up is soft. Some of them (like Darren Bravo) reputedly have talent, but they lack application and judgement at this point in their careers. Chanderpaul is the glue that holds them together. He’s a father figure.

If England get Chanderpaul early tomorrow, don’t be surprised if we still win by an innings. However, he’ll have to bloody nick one first.

James Morgan

Stumps: England (259-3) lead West Indies (243) by 16 runs

It’s that time of year when we observe one of English cricket’s newer, but no less tenacious traditions. Every year we make the same observation, and emit the same moan: it’s too bloody early to be playing test cricket.

When I was growing up these were still the low-key early weeks of the English season, during which our game was diffidently feeling its way out of hibernation. These days, we’re already into the hurly- burly of test cricket, even  though the weather is too cold, and the spectators aren’t yet ready. If you remember,  at the Cardiff and Durham tests against Sri Lanka last year, almost no one turned up.

There are two particularly puzzling things about why our international season now starts so early. The first is the unfathomably long break between the summer’s two test series. This one ends on 11th June, and then more than five weeks elapse before the first test against South Africa on 19th July, during which there’ll be nine ODIs. Instead of starting the first test on 17th May, couldn’t the ECB have simply dispensed with a few of those one dayers, or played them first – before the tests?

The second puzzler is how early in the season the test cricket finishes. The final match against South Africa is due to end on 20th August. Late August and even early September is a much nicer – and warmer – time of the year for cricket than mid-May. So why are the authorities so determined to ignore both our climate and our sensibilities – perversely preferring to stage cricket in sombre spring to mellow, sun-dappled late summer?

The answer, I suspect, is to be found within the fixture list of a different sport. By an extraordinary coincidence, the Premiership football season ended four days before this test match began at Lord’s. The next season kicks off on 18th August, two days before the last test match of the summer ends.

In other words, the English international season fits perfectly – almost to the millimetre – into the non-football window of the summer. Which is very handy for Sky Sports, who have airtime to fill when there’s no football, and who also prefer not to waste their premium products by having them overlap.

Sky are the ECB’s paymasters, and they tend to get what they want. Of course, there are those old fashioned types who might argue that the English cricket season should be arranged not around the commercial imperatives of a private corporation, but rather the interests of spectators. But hey, we only pay for it, after all.

If you’re wondering why I’ve ended up discussing this subject at such length, it’s partly because today’s play at Lord’s wasn’t particularly interesting, alas. It unfolded pretty much as everyone expected, and even Strauss’s century had a certain inevitability about it.

I imagine every England fan was as chuffed as I was to see the skipper reach his ton. The huge roar from the Lord’s crowd, when he cut to the boundary to bring up three figures, spoke volumes for the affection and respect we have for him. Watching his recent travails has not been fun.

West Indies performed very decently today, with all their bowlers – Edwards especially – sticking to the task and working hard. They just lack much in the way of a cutting edge – and the pitch is slow.

Kevin Pietersen missed out on a gilt-edged opportunity; he could have really gorged himself on the bowling tomorrow, given how dynamically he batted in his cameo today. Instead, we hope that tomorrow will be Johnny Bairstow’s day. Let’s all wish him luck.

Meanwhile, what price for Stuart Broad taking a wicket with his first ball of the West Indies second innings? That would give him a hat-trick – with each of the three balls bowled on different days. I don’t know about you, but I love the thought of that.

Maxie Allen

Stumps: West Indies 243-9

Let’s be blunt. Is there any test series which fires the imagination less than England v West Indies in May? In terms of predictability, futility and general drabness, there’s little to compare, save the prospect of an England 50 over world cup campaign.

Everyone approached today’s play with a sense of dreariness, and the sullen weather perfectly suited the mood. Neither side can gain much from these proceedings. West Indies are not going to win the series. If our team wins easily, no one will be impressed. But if we make heavy weather of it, the critics’ knives will be out.

Not that you’d hear such negative talk in the mainstream cricket media. They had to be upbeat in their previews, because if they’re frank about the likely dullness of this series, what reason do we have to watch or read? If you believe Sky Sports, every single match ever played is set to be the most enthralling contest of all time. As a blog, we have the luxury of the freedom to be more candid.

There’s going to be extensive discussion about the composition of England’s XI in this test, especially as on paper the tail is so strong. Swann at ten, for goodness sake. In the eighties, Ted Dexter would have batted him at three. I remember a time when, if Malcolm or Tufnell were playing, Angus Fraser would be at nine. Ah, the good old days.

So, given that we bat deep, why still play six specialist batsmen – so the argument goes – and only four bowlers? And as the visitors are a pretty weak side, why do we need all that batting? The problem with such logic is that the reverse equally applies. Why do we need five bowlers?

Few would advocate us fielding only five bats against South Africa later this summer. Andy Flower could never countenance that, which provides the reason for the selection in this match. The coach and captain seek consistency and stability, rather than chopping and changing from one fixture to another unless the case for it is irresistible. From where I’m sitting, as a spectator, I think they’re right.

At the risk of sounding both arrogant and complacent, England might well beat West Indies, at home, with only four batsmen and three bowlers. Not that we’ll be thrashing them inside two days – on today’s evidence, the visitors have developed more sinew than previously – but there is an almost mechanical inevitability to our pre-eminence over these opponents. Every match is virtually identical, as if generated from a Microsoft Office template. Like in a Bond film, even if the scenery and the cast change, the  plot and outcome are always the same.

Today’s play was a classic example. West Indies weren’t dreadful, by any means, but neither were they quite good enough. Whenever they looked like making progress, we pegged them back. Chanderpaul was their best player, and Anderson was ours, although Broad deserved his wickets for the length he found after tea. In the end, England will bowl them out for about 250, which is what everyone expected at the start of play.

Beyond any doubt, Bravo’s run out was the day’s champagne moment, if only for the all-round incompetence and Prior’s diabolical throw. I’d love to have heard his conversation with Swann afterwards. And the incident reminds us how wonderful it will always be to witness professional cricketers playing like complete village idiots.

Maxie Allen

While the sporting world focuses on football – and celebrates ‘the best ending to a Premier League season ever’ (even though the two richest teams predictably finished first and second) – significant news from the cricket world has largely gone unnoticed.

Well we’re not having it. We’re going to concentrate on a proper trophy – one which wasn’t bought, and wasn’t won by a collection of foreign mercenaries representing the highest bidder; I’m referring to all the top clubs here by the way, not just Man City. Come on, do you really think Rio Ferdinand or Fernando Torres would be playing for their respective clubs if they paid like Barnet, or even worse, Aston Villa?

As far as we’re concerned, yesterday’s big news was that Jimmy Anderson has been named England’s cricketer of the year for 2011/12. It’s totally and utterly deserved. Jimmy’s transformation from lost looking drinks-carrier to one of the best seam bowlers in the world has been nothing short of brilliant. He has had his critics over the years – and he’s shoved accusations that he’s a pie chucker down their collective cakeholes.

England have produced a number of decent quicks in the recent past, but none of them have really delivered the goods over an extended period of time. Angus Fraser briefly shined brightly, but then injured his hip. Andrew Flintoff conquered the world in 2005, but then injured his entire body. Perhaps only Darren Gough shined both at home and abroad; but even then, Dazzler’s career was blighted with injuries.

Jimmy Anderson, on the other hand, has been a fantastic bowler for a while. He’s shot down accusations that he’s only effective in English conditions – a criticism levelled at so many English seamers – by bowling beautifully in Australia, the UAE and most recently in Sri Lanka.

Meanwhile, he’s as fit as a gazelle. He’s surely the fittest bloke in the England side – capable of bowling accurately and skilfully in stifling heat, even during the last session of the day. He’s also the best fielder in the team. How many quick bowlers can say that?

Yep, Jimmy Anderson is a hero in our books. He’s also learnt to deal with the media much better. It wasn’t long ago that he was bashful and somewhat incoherent in front of the cameras. Now he speaks with confidence and maturity. That’s what happens when you keep winning awards I suppose. Public speaking is a bit like taking wickets: hard work and practice makes perfect.

James Morgan

I imagine that supporting the West Indies is a bit like being a Nottingham Forest fan. Your team used to be the best in the business, playing entertaining stuff that had neutrals purring, but humiliation is now as frequent and predictable as digs at the coalition government on BBC’s Question Time.

And just when you think the Windies might be on the verge of a revival, they capitulate like lemmings at a cliff jumping party; which is probably what their fans will be organising too after their latest embarrassment – this time at the hands of the England Lions.

In yesterday’s warm up match the Windies put on a decent show. They batted with determination and even managed to set the Lions a tricky run chase of just under 200. However, their attempts to defend that score today were shocking. It wasn’t just inept; it was totally lacking heart.

Sometimes I wonder whether West Indian players can pat their heads and rub their stomachs at the same time. They certainly can’t bat well and bowl well in the same match. Getting two things right simultaneously seems beyond them.

To put their ten wicket defeat in perspective, the man who did the damage for the Lions today was little Joe Root – a young guy who had previously made just one first class hundred in his career. Despite being highly rated, Root has continuously struggled to live up to the hype. He finds county bowlers a handful most of the time (averaging a paltry 33 before this match), yet he took one look at the Windies attack and suddenly morphed into Len Hutton.

The obvious point is this: if the Lions can beat the West Indies by ten wickets, what will the senior England team do to them? Remember, a couple of months ago Strauss’s men bowled the Lions out for peanuts and had to set themselves an artificial score to chase; it was the only way they could get some meaningful batting practice. If the Windies are to avoid humiliation in the first test, they’ll have to improve fast. Scratch that. They’ll have to improve super fast.

The Windies also suffered some bad news today when Kemar Roach, their best bowler, was unable to take the field. He injured his hand batting and must now be an injury doubt for the first test. It never rains, it pours – how apt when we’ve had the wettest April and May in living memory.

While the West Indies final XI for the first test is now in doubt, the England selectors appear to have settled on the make-up of their side. The only real question before today was who the sixth specialist batsman would be. With Ravi Bopara nursing an injury, Jonny Bairstow has been given the nod.

It will be interesting to see how Bairstow does. He’s obviously a very talented lad and he deserves his call up simply because he’s scored more runs than his nearest rivals; Alex Hales has had a very disappointing season thus far, whilst James Taylor’s first innings ton for the Lions was his first meaningful innings for some time. Then again, England could probably field ten men and still beat the Windies if current form is anything to go by.

James Morgan

In a move which will delight cricket fans across the country, Mitchell Starc, the least impressive of Australia’s young fast bowlers, was detained at Heathrow today and ultimately sent back to Australia. His Yorkshire debut will have to wait.

What was his crime I hear you ask? Although we initially suspected he was up to his eyeballs in a vegemite smuggling ring, these rumours (which were based on nothing other than my own imagination) proved baseless. It was just a visa cock up.

None of this has improved the mood of Yorkshire’s chairman Colin Graves, who hit the headlines this week during the Ajmal Shahzad fiasco; Shahzad has since stuck two fingers up at the Yorkshire fans by joining the dark side – aka Lancashire. Well, at least he’ll get division one cricket, eh.

Somewhat predictably, Graves has had a bit of a paddy in the media again – blaming ‘bad agents’ and comically refusing to pay for Starc’s airfare back to Britain next week.

We don’t blame him really. It’s all a bit embarrassing. Yorkshire had wanted Starc to play in their first XI this week. Now they’ll have to wait a few days extra – and when their overseas star does arrive, he’ll probably be more jetlagged than a koala that’s drunk eighty seven cans of XXXX.

Interestingly, news has just reached us that several English counties are desperately checking the visas of their own Australian players. Indeed, Worcestershire and Glamorgan are going over the small-print with a fine tooth comb – desperately hoping they can get Michael Klinger and Moises Henriques deported too. They haven’t mustered a single decent innings between them this season.

James Morgan

From knuckle balls to knuckle sandwiches: apparently Adam Hollioake has a new hobby

A couple of weeks ago we speculated that the only careers available to ex cricketers were media gigs or ‘proper jobs’ i.e. mundane office affairs that involve number crunching and clerical chores. Only charismatic supermen like Michael Vaughan and Shane Warne had any other option i.e. advertising Advanced Hair Hats. However, Adam Hollioake has proved otherwise. There’s plenty of opportunities and adventure out there for washed-up up former cricketers – especially if one is willing to have the living daylights kicked out of oneself in order to entertain an audience of red necks.

In case you haven’t heard, Hollioake is the latest idiot to try out cage fighting. He isn’t going pro quite yet – apparently his wife has a few reservations after watching his first bout – but the former Surrey and England cult hero reckons the thrill he gets from beating up someone he’s never met (whilst simultaneously being beaten to a pulp himself) is greater than anything he experienced in cricket. He obviously didn’t play at Grace Road in early April then.

We’ve got to say that we’re a little surprised by Hollioake’s bizarre taste in entertainment. We expected something like this from Steve Kirby or Andre Nel – blokes who routinely start fights with their own reflections – but Hollioake always seemed like a sensible bloke. What possessed a former Surrey and England ODI captain to take up a sport that makes WWE wrestling look cerebral?

It will be interesting to see if Hollioake turns out to be a trend setter. What other insane pursuits might former cricketers try? How long before we hear that Alan Igglesden is now a professional lion tamer; or Ian Austin a synchronised swimmer? After all, Darren Gough is now a football pundit on TalkSport and as for Lance Cairns … well, we know all about his penchant for packing and selling fudge.

James Morgan

Dear Ajmal,

I was very sad to hear about your departure from Yorkshire this week – mostly because I thought you were Saeed Ajmal; the prospect of the best spinner in the world hitting the open market was a mouth-watering one. However, even though you’re actually a fast bowler who has only played one test, I still think I’ve got a job for you. But first of all, we should discuss the reasons for your not so amicable exit from Headingley.

Now I’ve got to be honest. I think you’re pretty good. Not brilliant, but pretty good. I even thought you were worth that spot in England’s Ashes winning squad in 2010/11 (not that we’ve heard much of you since). However, according to Colin Graves, the Yorkshire Director of Cricket, you actually think you’re amazing. In that case, why is your first class bowling average nearly 34? Did you know that Jason Gillespie, the coach you refuse to listen too (allegedly) has a first class average of 27, and a test record that’s even better? You might have been able to pick up a few useful tips from Dizzy – and I’m not talking about the best place to buy caravans.

We can’t tolerate this kind of attitude I’m afraid. A realistic appraisal of one’s abilities is essential if we’re going to work together. However, if you’re prepared to knuckle down and put your ego to one side, we think we’ve got the perfect home for you. It’s at St Annes Allstars – our social cricket side in South West London. Here’s why we think you’ll fit right in …

According to Graves and Martin Moxon, you don’t like following team instructions. You’d rather do your own thing – i.e. bowling bouncers and yorkers etc rather than building pressure. Snap! Our current bowlers are all improvising souls. Our captain asks them to bowl straight and take wickets but they’re all insubordinate sods. Instead they serve up a feast of full tosses and longhops. And as for building pressure, ha! Our team doesn’t know the meaning of the word (although there’s usually a lot of pressure to get to the pub quickly after the game).

So what do you reckon then Ajmal? You could sign for another professional team – if anyone wants you – or you could have a free rein at the Allstars. We’ll even pay you. Ok, it won’t be thousands every year, but you’ll be well compensated by an endless supply of stale scotch eggs and soggy onion bhajis at approximately 4pm on Sundays – depending on whether we’re playing home or away.

I also guarantee that you’ll encounter some rather bowler friendly wickets (some of them might not have been rolled for weeks) and you’ll even get the chance to physically injure some Colin Graves lookalikes. You might also take a few wickets. Maybe. But don’t count on too many caught behinds. The opposition won’t be anywhere near good enough to get an edge – and even if they do, our wicket keeper won’t catch it; he’ll be standing near the sightscreen.

James Morgan