In the Headingley Test match just concluded, doubtless India will be asking themselves how on earth they managed to lose a game in which their top order had twice put England’s bowlers to the sword. Two reasons stand out: their lower order was twice swept away with maximum contumely by Josh Tongue; and a surfeit of dropped catches. Catches win matches is the hoariest and most ageworn of saws, yet it remains as relevant as ever. Last night in Barbados the truth of this may yet be tested.
‘If you short or full today, you goin’ to get paint.’ Thus a long-forgotten Bajan commenting on the idiosyncrasies of cricket hereabouts. This is an unforgiving ground with more pace than most in the Caribbean. Bruce Yardley once scored 74 and 43 here batting at number eight against the full fury of Roberts, Holding and Garner. Courage under fire can be rewarded here.
Cummins won the toss and elected to bat, on the grounds that spin is expected later on. Roston Chase opined that he would have done likewise. Chase’s seamers were rarely short, preferring a full length and allowing the ball to swing extravagantly. Shamarr Joseph had spearheaded that improbable ‘Gabba victory with his boundless aggression, and he has lost nothing in hostility in the interim. He removed Konstas with a snorting off-cutter adjudged leg before on review. The teenaged opener did little wrong. Sometimes the bowler is simply too good.
The same could not be said for Cameron Green, whose annointing as Australia’s long-term number three looks increasingly ill-advised. Offered a life when he prodded forward and edged to King, he repeated his error and presented Shamarr with his second scalp. This flat-footed myopic prodding will not do in Test matches. Either play forward using your enormous height, or else back into your crease. Josh Inglis meanwhile on receipt of a rare short ball from Jayden Seales obligingly lifted it skywards to Shai Hope. Suddenly Australia was three down for not much and in a whole world of trouble.
Khawaja meanwhile had troubles of his own, having edged behind and been reprieved by the butter-fingered. His subcontinental style looks ill-suited to Test cricket. And yet he knows his game well, and clung to the crease, waiting for some loose deliveries. Shortly before lunch the home side obliged, and he went to lunch somewhat happier. Travis Head was his usual belligerent self. When he is on song batting looks easier. Cover drive or square cut outside off, and glance to leg on the pads. Anything on the stumps, block it. At 3/65 the visitors could be well satisfied with the second hour of the morning session.
After lunch Khawaja on 45 edged Seales to King in the gully, who dropped another chance. This was a difficult catch, but it ought to have been accepted. Head meanwhile reached his half-century from 57 balls. Routine for him, remarkable for anyone else. The reappearance of Shamarr Joseph brough Usman’s good fortune to a close when he edged behind from one of his ambitious swipes across the line. It is a stroke which brings him a lot of runs, but it looks unsightly, as if a normally mild-mannered fellow has suddenly decided to doff his coat and avenge an imagined insult. Nevertheless his 47 had been a fine innings under trying circumstances.
Webster came and went in quick time. He too did little wrong, and moved into double figures with a succulent cover-drive. Joseph’s riposte next ball was a bail-high leg-cutter which did just enough to evade the groping bat. By now the man had 4/25 and the visitors were hanging over the edge of a deep crevasse by a single, fraying slip-knot. It had been an extraordinary display of fast bowling well worthy of the mighty names on the remodelled grandstands. Head then cut Shamarr from far too full a length and edged behind. Alas for Joseph: the ball had bounced just in front of the outstretched gloves.
Carey then wafted at Seales and was brilliantly taken by Chase in the slips. The ball appeared to have passed the Windies captain’s shoulder, but he pocketed the ball and displayed it as though presenting a spray of flowers from a top hat. Tea was taken at 6/138. Straight afterwards Head flailed at Greaves far too close to his off-stump and was taken behind. Seales removed Starc with an away-swinger and the end was nigh.
Or possibly not. Captain Pat had clearly had enough of all this and launched a blistering counter-attack. Some of his strokes were at least intelligible. Bouncers which stuck in the pitch were lifted over the keeper’s head. Windy woofs outside off which barely escaped the field were familiar enough. And some were unearthly, like the lofted cover hoick which carried the boundary for six. This cannot be found in even the most outré batting manual. Yet Seales kept his nerve and held one back just enough for Cummins to loft it to mid-off. His 28 had been a praiseworthy flurry, yet all too brief.
The innings ought to have concluded when Lyon edged Shamarr to Brandon King, yet the hapless debutant dropped it: his third fluffed catch. The end did come on 180 when Hazelwood gloved Seales to Hope. Seales finished with 5/60. His Test strike rate is well down in the thirties: an incredible statistic in itself. He simply has the knack of taking wickets. He and Shamarr gave the tormented Australians no respite. Alzarri Joseph went wicketless, yet you could not say that he offered any degree of comfort to the visitors. Aside from Khawaja’s early reprieve, most of the missed chances did not signify much. And yet. Had everything been pouched the innings might have subsided for a hundred.
With an hour and a half to bat, the home side had reasons for optimism. Yet only Brathwaite boasts a Test average above thirty. And when he fell to Starc, taken low down at second slip by Webster, tremors would have been felt. Starc’s chief weapon with the new ball is his deadly late inswinger. Yet the ball which holds its line, as this one did, is every bit as lethal. Campbell then poked at Starc’s away-swinger and was taken behind by Carey. When King edged his first delivery just past his off-stump, he must have felt that the cricketing gods had spared him further humiliation. Starc’s rueful grin spoke bound volumes. Cummins’ patented leg-cutter disposed of Carty, who had looked sound and competent in his 20; and Warrican, sent in as night-watchman, lasted just two deliveries, playing all over Hazelwood and losing his stumps. King and Chase saw the home side to stumps at 4/67. Australia had drawn level, at the very least. King had much redemption to achieve after muffing three catches, but his unbeaten 23 has been a promising beginning.
Many a past luminary was looking on from the pavilion, celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of their 1975 World Cup triumph. They would have liked what they saw. West Indies Test cricket has been an ongoing disaster for far too long. But this team is a credit to their coach, the indefatigable Darren Sammy. He was a cricketer of limited skills, but the Fire In Babylon lives on in him. He has dispensed with the shirkers, the self-absorbed and the half-hearted. Only those who truly want to be out there are welcome in his team. We should all wish them well.