Southampton Test: Should be tight if we bowl well, says Crawley

Southampton, July 12 (SocialNews.XYZ) England batsman Zak Crawley feels if the hosts can get a 200-run lead, they stand a good chance of winning the first Test against West Indies at the Ageas Bowl.

At the end of Day 4, Windies' pacers Shannon Gabriel and Alzarri Joseph tipped the scales in favour of the visitors in the last session of a topsy-turvy day. From being 168/3 at Tea, England were reduced to 284/8 in the final session with a lead of 170 runs at Stumps.

England captain Ben Stokes (46) and Crawley (46) came out for the third session with the intention of increasing England's scoring rate. The pair succeeded in keeping the hosts on top for much of the first half of the third session with a 98-run partnership before both got out in quick succession.

"It should be tight if we bowl well tomorrow and hopefully get a few more runs. If we can get above a 200-run lead that would be very nice and give us a great chance of winning the game," Crawley was quoted as saying by Sky Sports after the end of day's play.

"They bowled quite well but the pitch was offering a bit of up-and-down bounce, so we'll work with that all day tomorrow and we've definitely got the bowlers to take 10 wickets on there.

"It's definitely two-paced and with the new ball it started to bounce a bit more. With the old ball kept low rather than bounce but the new ball started to bounce and take the gloves which we saw quite a bit. There was obviously a bit of nip there at times to get a couple of key wickets for the West Indies at the end. Mainly bounce with the new ball," he added.

Source: IANS