West Indies vs England: Classy Dan Lawrence shows fight that was missing in Ashes debacle

There was an inescapable question on the lips of England fans – and there are plenty of them – on day one in Barbados: where was Dan Lawrence in the Ashes?

While Joe Root, all wit and wisdom, reached stumps on a wonderful unbeaten 119, it was Lawrence who lit up the day. In the 45 overs before he came in, they scored 80 runs (with Alex Lees dropping anchor). In the 44.5 overs he was at the crease, they scored 164. That made it an excellent day for England.

Lawrence fell in the final over of the day in agonising fashion. The new ball was under five overs old, yet already he had strummed it for three delightfully driven fours to move to 91, a career-best. On a flat pitch, a maiden Test hundred awaited in the morning. But Lawrence could not resist one last drive, to the day’s penultimate ball, and picked out extra cover. He slumped to his knees before walking off, head down.

It was a poor dismissal, especially as Lawrence had been dropped at slip on 72. Marcus Trescothick, England’s batting coach, was dismissed six times between 81 and 99 in Test cricket, so knows how Lawrence feels. “Really annoying” was his simple assessment.

“We will look at the innings and say ‘well played, it was brilliant you did everything right’,” explained Trescothick. “And then we try to understand what happened there? Did anything change? Those are the sort of questions we’ll sit down and talk about.”

However frustrating its ending, this was an enterprising, entertaining innings studded with lovely boundaries. He took 10 balls to get off the mark, then pushed down the ground, flicked through mid-on (there could barely have been a more appropriate birthplace than Leytonstone’s Whipps Cross Hospital), and pulled the seamers, while taking the