England vs West Indies, 2020: 2nd Test, Day 4 – Four openers for England in a Test, Stokes' maiden outing as opener and more stats

The Manchester Test is set up for a thrilling finish as England ended the 4th day at 37/2 after taking a first-innings lead of 182 runs. A collective bowling effort from England, especially in the final session, saw West Indies getting  bundled out for 287. Kraigg Brathwaite, Sharmarh Brooks and Roston Chase scored fifties to help the visitors avoid the follow-on. In pursuit of quick runs, England opened the innings with Ben Stokes and Jos Buttler but did lose two wickets before the stumps.

Here are all the statistical highlights from an interesting 4th day’s play at the Old Trafford:

Four different opening batsmen in the game for England:

1997 – England is only the 2nd team to have four players opening the batting in a Test match in the last 30 years. Pakistan also had four different openers during the 1997 Karachi Test against West Indies. Aamer Sohail and Ijaz Ahmed opened in the first innings while Mohammad Wasim and Azhar Mahmood opened in the second essay when Pakistan needed 12 runs to complete a win.

1921 – The last instance of England having four different players opening the batting in a home Test match was in the 1921 Ashes Test also hosted by Manchester.

In these 99 years, England had eight instances of having four different openers in a Test match across the globe with the last of them during the 1954 Kingston Test against West Indies.

Maiden outing as an opener for Stokes:

1 – The second essay of Manchester Test marked to be the first-ever instance of Ben Stokes opening the innings in International Cricket. The highest position Stokes batted in International Cricket before this match was No.3. He batted at that position in eight International games but only once in Test cricket. In overall, Stokes has batted at every position in Test cricket except No.2.

1 – The ongoing second innings at Old Trafford is also the first-ever instance of Ben Stokes opening the batting in first-class cricket.

Interestingly, Jos Buttler was the first-ever opening partner of Stokes in the T20 format as well. The all-rounder opened the batting in T20s for the first time during the 2018 IPL while representing Rajasthan Royals.

Woakes @ 500:

500 – Shannon Gabriel’s wicket was the 500th in first-class cricket for Chris Woakes. The England all-rounder has featured in 148 first-class matches thus far and bowled close to 25000 deliveries. Woakes is also two wickets away from completing 100 wickets in Test cricket.

Brathwaite continues to shine in England:

4 – Kraigg Brathwaite now has four fifty-plus scores in Test cricket on England soil across nine innings. Alastair Cook (6) is the only other opener with four or more fifty-plus scores in England since the start of 2017.