Law urges Windies to ‘rewrite history’ against England

BIRMINGHAM: West Indies coach Stuart Law hopes his side can “rewrite history” during a Test series in England.

The first of a three-match campaign gets underway at Edgbaston on Thursday (today) with the inaugural day/night Test ever staged in England.Much of the pre-match build-up has focused on how Joe Root’s men will cope with their first taste of pink ball international cricket.

Also, given this is England’s last Test series before they tour Australia, there has been much speculation as to what the composition of this side could mean in terms of their Ashes defence ‘Down Under’.

That England, fresh from a 3-1 home success against South Africa, will win their series against the West Indies is almost taken as read, something unthinkable when the men from the Caribbean were dominating Test cricket in the 1970s and 1980s.Yet a sign of how far the West Indies have slipped from those heights is that they have gone 17 matches without a Test win in England, losing 14 and drawing the other three.

Although an end now appears in sight to a bitter dispute between players and officials, the West Indies have still arrived in England without several star names for a series that is, to the dismay of traditionalists, taking place at the same time as the lucrative Caribbean Premier League Twenty20 competition.

Yet the West Indies did draw their last Test series against England in the Caribbean two years ago — despite being labelled a “mediocre” side by England and Wales Cricket Board chairman Colin Graves.

Jason Holder, the captain for that series, is still the West Indies skipper and Law is confident the all-rounder remains the right man for the job.“He takes it with a pinch of salt, the things said about him and this team and uses it to drive him and them forward,” Law told reporters at Edgbaston on Tuesday.

“It is a lot of responsibility, and he does it with fantastic integrity,” added former batsman Law, who made just one Test appearance for Australia such was their top-order strength in the 1990s.