Veteran pacer Stuart Broad kept alive England's hopes of winning the second Test against West Indies with a brilliant spell on Day 4 at Old Trafford.
Broad, who was left gutted after being dropped in the first Test, claimed three wickets in 14 deliveries with the second new ball as England bowled out the visitors for 287, taking the first innings lead of 182 runs.
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In a bid to build quickly on the lead, England opened the second innings with Ben Stokes and Jos Buttler. While Buttler fell for a duck and Zak Crawley (11) followed soon, the home team finished the fourth day on 37/2, extending the lead to 219.
Speaking at the close of play, Broad said England will look to get hold of a second new ball quickly and thus the hosts might set West Indies an achievable target on the final day.
"It'll be a good day tomorrow, I think," Broad told Sky Sports. "We need to set it up in the first 45 minutes to an hour tomorrow. The dream world [would be to] try and get two new balls because we've seen the new ball has behaved slightly differently on this pitch, and gives the bowlers a real chance. We've given ourselves a chance of winning this game which is a great position to be in."
The danger for England is that an over-aggressive declaration may allow the tourists to complete the run chase and take an unassailable 2-0 lead in the series. It is pertinent to mention here that the maximum of 98 overs can be bowled on Day 5.
"We've not had those sort of chats of where we want to be runs-wise," Broad said, "but I think the second new ball is going to be quite important, even if it's for four, five, six overs. Because if West Indies were seven-down with that second new ball, you'd feel like it would give you a real chance.
"We saw today, with a bit of short-pitch bowling, you can you can stop the scoring quite quickly with big square boundaries and windy conditions, so I think we'd sacrifice a few runs for the chance to have that second ball for sure."
Although Broad pinning hopes on the second new ball, he also feels that England have the creativity in their ranks to mix their tactics up in the middle overs.
"Going round the wicket, he bowled a really hostile spell on a slow pitch that created chances and got him a wicket," Broad said. "Hopefully we'll have enough runs on the board that we can get creative and if a few boundaries go against us, it doesn't matter.
"Bessy might play a key role tomorrow. Obviously the bowlers have had a decent workload today, we've got to back that up and do everything tonight recovery-wise. But I think our mindset is to create ten chances, and I think that pitch - particularly with the new ball - has got ten chances in it.
