Repay The Favour And Help Us Out Of Our Crisis

In years to come this series will be remembered for the performances of England’s Ben Stokes and Stuart Broad. Yet, it will be the contribution of West Indies that will live longest in the memory.

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Jason Holder and his squad did not have to come to the UK but they chose to leave the relative safety of the Caribbean to travel to one of the countries worst-hit by coronavirus.

They spent seven weeks locked away in hotels and as challenging as that was, they provided the cricketing public with some memorable performances, not least in winning the first Test in Southampton, during a series that went down to the final day.

Stokes got England back into the series with an all-round performance for the ages in a second Test where he scored 254 runs and took three wickets.

Broad’s two three-wicket bursts on days four and five set that win up but it was the seamer who totally dominated the deciding Test with a match haul of 10-67 and his first half-century with the bat in three years. He also joined the 500-wicket club on the final day, becoming only the seventh player in Test history to achieve the feat.

Yet, amid the joy of one of the proudest days of his career, Broad was keen to point to the contribution England’s opponents made in getting this once-threatened cricketing summer up and running.