Top 5 Tests of 2017
With 2017 coming to a close, a visit to the past to recall some of the best matches is the need of the hour.
In this section dealing with the most intriguing of Tests to have taken place this year, Sportskeeda looks at some of the greatest and most memorable games of the purest format in 2017. Though only the best five have been listed, many more ran extremely close: New Zealand rapidly hunting down a fifth-day target against Bangladesh at Wellington; Sri Lanka winning by 68 runs against Pakistan on the final day at Dubai, and Australia somehow ekeing out a draw against India at Ranchi.
The top five have been listed below.
#5 England vs West Indies, Headingley
West Indies 427 (S Hope 147, Brathwaite 134; Anderson 5/76) and 322/5 ( S Hope 118*, Brathwaite 95; Moeen 2/76) beat England 258 (Stokes 100; Gabriel 4/51, Roach 4/71) and 490/8 dec (Moeen 84, Root 72; Chase 3/85) by 5 wickets
Unexpectedly, a lowly West Indies side found a rare away win in a Test where all four results seemed possible. Shannon Gabriel and Kemar Roach set it up for the visitors on the first day when they shook England with early swing and movement off the pitch. Only Ben Stokes, with a quick 100 and captain Joe Root, 59, made contributions in a total of 258.
When West Indies slumped to 35/3 in reply, a repeat of their famous recent struggles seemed obvious – they had been thrashed by an innings in just the previous Test of the series – but Kraigg Brathwaite and Shai Hope dug hard and were rewarded for patient batting as they added 246. Both ended up with centuries – 147 and 134, respectively – with West Indies scoring 427.
England then slipped to 94/3 before Root, Stokes and Dawid Malan rescued them, but the defining innings came from Moeen Ali, who hit a boundary-laden, fluent 84 as England declared on 490 to set West Indies 322 to win.
At 53/2 on the final morning, Braithwaite and Hope joined hands again to add 144. Brathwaite was removed by Moeen for 95, but Hope finished on 118* - the first man to score twin hundreds in a first-class match at Headingley – as, astonishingly, West Indies chased down their fourth-highest target under dark, grey skies.