Jack Leach and Saqib Mahmood rescued England from a precarious position by combining effectively to ensure that their first-innings total was respectable.
For England’s final Test against the West Indies, the unlikely heroes were Jack Leach and Saqib Mahmood on Day 1 at the National Cricket Stadium, St. George’s in Grenada. By this point, the visitors’ lead had been whittled down to nine runs after they had been reduced to 114 for 9. But Leach and Mahmood rescued England from a precarious position to ensure that England’s first-innings total was at least respectable. England reached 204 all out at stumps on Day 1 thanks to a 90-run stand between the two of them.
Jermaine Blackwood’s delivery dragged Mahmood down for 49 in the penultimate over of the day, one shy of his maiden first-class half-century.
On 41, Leach was still unbeaten.
Mahmood and Leach were England’s highest-scoring batsmen in the third Test, with Alex Lees’s 97-ball 31 the team’s second-highest score.
During the 145-year history of Test cricket, this was the only time that the number 10 and 11 batsmen scored the most runs in a completed inning. For England, the highest-scoring pair in a Test innings was Tom Garrett and Edwin Evans against Australia in Sydney in 1885, also as number 10 and 11 respectively.
Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow were the only England batsmen to fail to score a single run. He got sent out for just two runs.
There was a brief scuffle between Chris Woakes (25) and Craig Overton (14).
Jayden Seales took three wickets for the West Indies, while Kemar Roach, Kyle Mayers, and Alzarri Joseph each took two.
