At stumps, the pair were still in the crease in an unbroken third-wicket partnership of 102, with Strauss standing tall on 139 not out, to add to his 169 in Antigua and his 142 in Barbados. England went on to pile up 258 runs for the loss of two wickets at the close of the first day, Cricinfo.com reported on Friday.
It was an unsatisfactory day´s play as the surface was unresponsive. West Indies were on the backfoot the moment they lost the toss and were asked to field first. Without the injured Jerome Taylor, and having dropped their senior spinner, Sulieman Benn, to accommodate an extra batsman, Brendan Nash, who could not add to his career wicket tally of 1 and the part-time spin pair of Ryan Hinds and Chris Gayle.
Still, Strauss could do no more than treat each ball on its merits, and that he did to fine effect, cracking 11 fours from 261 balls, including an early glut of his favourite cut shots and a selection of handsome drives. Until the arrival of Collingwood, his team-mates found the going rather less favorable, however. Alastair Cook looked good for his 12 runs before feathering an edge as Daren Powell found a hint of movement on off stump, while Owais Shah took 19 nervy deliveries to get off the mark, and had ground along to 29 from 115 balls before retiring hurt with a painful bout of cramp - the same problem that undermined his debut in Mumbai three years ago.
England also revealed their gameplan at the toss, by handing a debut to the pace man Amjad Khan and a recall to their second spinner, Monty Panesar, in a bid to claim 20 wickets in a Test for the first time since September. In the circumstances, it would have been an opportune toss for Chris Gayle to win. Instead, England batted first for the fifth time out of five this winter, and by and large, made trouble-free progress.
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