LONDON: England beat the West Indies by 269 runs to claim a series-clinching win in the third Test at Old Trafford on Tuesday.
Victory saw England take the three-match series 2-1 and regain the Wisden Trophy they lost in the Caribbean last year.
England’s Stuart Broad joined one of cricket’s most exclusive clubs when he took his 500th Test wicket on Tuesday.
The 34-year-old paceman became just the seventh bowler to reach the landmark when he had West Indies opener Kraigg Brathwaite plumb lbw for 19 at Old Trafford on the fifth and final day of the third Test.
“It would be wrong of me not to say a huge thankyou to the West Indies team, because without them, the sacrifice they made, coming over on the third or fourth of June, living biosecure for that amount of time, this summer wouldn’t be possible without them so a huge thankyou from all of our players to the Windies, because they’ve been heroes of this summer so far,” Broad told Sky Sports.
“We’re delighted with that. The batsmen have set it up for us again. When you’ve got scoreboard pressure like that it means so much to the bowling unit, and we were relentless.”
Broad had been left stranded on 499 wickets when, after he had already taken eight wickets in this match, rain washed out the whole of Monday’s fourth day.
He was then frustrated by some sound batting early Tuesday before a fresh burst of rain forced the players off the field for some 16 minutes.
“I think we all bowled really well together as a group,” added Broad.
“It was so windy out there that actually it felt if we got a shower it was going to go through really quickly. But we said this morning we’re going to have to bowl really well here, we’re going to have to be disciplined, because we needed eight wickets to win and we didn’t know if we would definitely get 98 overs to do that.”
