Joe Root can take positives from West Indies opener but poor decisions cost England Women

How was England’s red-ball reset for you? Were you wowed by the dynamism of their batsmen or the inventiveness of their bowlers? No. Well, at least they didn’t lose.

In fact, they ended the Test match pushing for a win, albeit one that required reckless complicity on the part of their opponents so turgid was the pitch in Antigua.

The optimistic narrative, as they prepare for tomorrow’s second Test in Barbados, is that this will provide a base from which Joe Root’s young team will launch a more winning brand of cricket, as they grow in stature, and go on to beat a mediocre West Indies team to clinch the series. As I say, that is the bullish view, though, as with most rebuilds in sport any progress tends to be jerky and incremental at best.

For one thing, England still have the perennial problem of taking wickets often enough to win Test matches overseas. Even James Anderson and Stuart Broad never cracked that one with any degree of regularity.

Sheer pace often helps the cause but with Mark Wood’s latest injury, a sore elbow, likely to rule him out of the second Test other means will be required. Cue the return of Ollie Robinson or, depending on the pitch, Saqib Mahmood.

Saqib is quicker than Robinson and more mercurial, though it is the steady Robinson, returning from a back strain, who will probably get the nod providing England’s management are confident he will not break down.

England certainly need to find a threat other than Jack Leach, who bowled decently but not exceptionally in the first Test. When you look at the data, as England do to the point of obsession, they took 14 West Indies wickets in 221.4 overs (five of them to Leach), while their opponents took 16 England wickets in 188.5 overs.

Of course that still