England's lack of top-order runs finally caught up with them during the series loss in the West Indies. A colossal 381-run defeat in the first Test in Barbados was followed by Saturday's 10-wicket thumping in Antigua where England produced yet another 'calypso collapso' display. No one better exemplified the difference than West Indies batsman Darren Bravo, whose 331-minute fifty, spanning 215 balls on a lively Antigua pitch, was the third slowest Test half-century in terms of time.

By contrast, England's second-innings 132 lasted only 38 balls more than it took Bravo to get to 50. Prior to arriving in the Caribbean, the all-rounders repeatedly bailed England out of top-order collapses at home against India and away to SL.