England’s Ollie Pope rode his luck to make 121 and lead the hosts to a rapid 416 all out on the first day of the second Test against West Indies at Trent Bridge on Thursday.
Dropped on 46 and 54, Pope compiled his sixth Test century as the hosts built on Ben Duckett’s sparkling 71 in the morning to establish a strong position.
“Really good day. The way we went about it, being put in to bat and putting 416 on the board is a really strong day,” Pope told the BBC. “Happy to get the three figures and make it count.”
England lost Zak Crawley to the third ball of the match, caught at slip by Alick Athanaze off Alzarri Joseph, but Duckett hit four boundaries in a row to get started and sped to his fifty off 32 balls.
The left-hander looked well on course for his fourth Test century until he pushed at a full ball from Shamar Joseph and nicked a low catch to Jason Holder at second slip.
Pope, dropped by Athanaze at gully just before lunch, should also have been caught by Holder after the interval before Joe Root, on 14, top-edged an attempted pull off Jayden Seales and skied a catch to Alzarri Joseph.
Harry Brook moved briskly to 36, including a six over backward point, before he edged a paddle sweep off spinner Kevin Sinclair to Kirk McKenzie at short leg and the bowler celebrated with a backward somersault.
Pope grew in confidence, moving to his hundred with a crisp four through square leg before removing his helmet and raising his bat to the crowd.
Pope edged a catch to Kavem Hodge off Alzarri Joseph but captain Ben Stokes made a welcome return to form with the bat, hitting eight fours in his 69 before being caught off part-time spinner Hodge.
Jamie Smith (36) and Chris Woakes (37) chipped in down the order and England will feel confident of taking advantage of a positive start to move 2-0 up in the series following their innings victory in the first Test at Lord’s.
“I think we did brilliant,” West Indies’ Sinclair said. “Having said that, we put Pope down a couple of times and he got a hundred so that hurt us.
“We did fairly well to bowl them out. Too many runs in the end but I would say it was a good day for us as a team.”