England are likely to drop Joe Denly from the playing eleven in the second Test against the West Indies for his poor performance in the opening match which England lost by four wickets, hinted head coach Chris Silverwood.
The coach, meanwhile, said that the team will continue to have their faith wicketkeeper-batsman Jos Buttler who, too, failed to produce any contribution in the first Test of the three-match series at the Rose Bowl Stadium.
It has been a long time since Buttler has shown his worth in red-ball cricket and averages a meager 23.22 since the start of 2019. He has only one triple-figure score in 75 innings.
“I’m not gonna go down that road yet of putting Jos under pressure, because I don’t think it’s going to help him,” said Silverwood as quoted by PTI via AFP. “First and foremost we want to give Jos the best opportunity to succeed.
“But I’m sure he is asking the same questions. He looked brilliant coming into this game, in practice and everything and he looked very good in the first innings. He just needs to go and make those big scores now doesn’t he? He knows that as well.
“From our point of view it’s just making sure that he feels confident in the environment he’s in.”
Denly, on the other hand, looks certain to make way for skipper Joe Root who had skipped the opener due to the birth of his child. Denly’s case has weakened further after 22-year-old Zak Crawley played a determined knock of 76 runs in the second innings to give England something to fight for.
“We’re all desperate to see Joe do really well. We can see he’s trying hard, he’s training hard and he’s a great bloke, hence why we all went to see him do well,” said Silverwood.
“But obviously he’s under pressure a little bit, yes. Zak is improving constantly. I think he certainly showed maturity and the innings he played was very good.
“We have some young players in that side that seem to have good heads on their shoulders, and he’s one of them. That’s what we are looking for,” the head coach added.
Jermaine Blackwood and Shannon Gabriel starred with bat and ball respectively as the West Indies beat England by four wickets to take a 1-0 lead in the three-match series, on Day 5 of the absorbing first Test.
The fifth day though belonged to Blackwood (95 off 154 balls; 12×4) who first negotiated the barrage of bouncers well and also kept a cool head on his shoulders to emerge as the unlikely hero, during West Indies’ chase of 200.