LONDON: For the second day running, Edgbaston was a picture under lights – resplendent in the setting sun, as a tanked-up crowd sang gleefully into the advancing night. This time, however, their dulcet overtures were accompanied by the incessant thud of raindrops, as the down side of staging day-night Test cricket in England revealed itself in no uncertain terms.
The lights had been involved in the day’s action for just seven overs of the evening session, in which time West Indies responded to another Alastair Cook magnum opus by inching along to 44 for 1, a deficit of 470.
After the early loss of Kraigg Brathwaite for a duck, Kyle Hope and Kieran Powell were granted a life in the cordon apiece as they reached stumps on 25 and 18 respectively – their pride still just about as intact as their wickets.
But the day, and the match so far for that matter, belonged to Cook, who had resumed with intent on 153 overnight, and ground on, and on, and on, eventually falling to the spin of Roston Chase for a gargantuan 243 from 407 balls.
His departure, deep into the tenth hour of his innings, triggered an immediate declaration and, as he left the field to a justified ovation, West Indies’ fielders made a point of chasing after him to offer their congratulations – a magnanimous gesture that spoke of
the huge esteem in which he is held by his opponents.
By that stage, he had run most of their team into the ground, in compiling his fourth Test double-century, and what would eventually be the third-highest of his 31 hundreds. Agencies
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