By Tony Cozier
Steve Smith’s proposed deal to Jason Holder to enliven the last day of the water-logged Test in Sydney was strictly fantasy. The West Indies captain’s rejoinder was based on reasonable reality.
Smith’s plan was for the West Indies to declare at their second day 248 for seven. He would then forego an Australian second innings, ‘bowl lob ups for seven or eight overs or whatever it was’ and offer an equation of 370 off 70 overs to win, a runs-per-over rate of 5.28.
It was a flawed idea for a couple of reasons.
Ian Chappell, the former Australian captain, cited the suspicion such a contrivance would create at a time when the game is resolute in its crusade against match-fixing.
Above all, it would have transformed even such a disrupted match into a laughable fiasco, a glorified equivalent of a typical Caribbean Sunday fete match, denigrating the image of Test cricket rather than enhancing it, as Smith believed it would.
Holder’s ‘no thank you’ decision was made in consultation with his team. It was based on the evidence of Australia’s carefree scoring against the toothless bowling throughout the series and, more to the point, on ‘our development and the phase we are at’.
Australia rattled along at an average 4.66 runs an over for their 1,489 runs in their four innings. What might have been had Smith’s proposal been accepted was obvious as David Warner blasted the fastest ever hundred in an SCG Test to deliver the last of the home team’s numerous hammer blows.
Sydney was just part of the ‘phases’ mentioned by Holder. It was preceded by six consecutive Test losses, two to Australia in the Caribbean in June, two to a basically new, developing Sri Lanka team in Sri Lanka in October and the first two in Australia.
Four times dismissed for under 200 and never scoring more than 300, the West Indies twice succumbed by an innings, other times by nine wickets, 277 runs and 177 runs. They were plundered for 10 hundreds. The biggest was Adam Voges 259 not out in Hobart; Darren Bravo’s 108 in the same match was the West Indies one and only.
This was a basically young, inexperienced team under a young inexperienced leader with the needle of confidence touching ‘empty’. Just eight months earlier it had been encouragingly replenished with victory over England at Kensington. It simply could not afford another dip, whatever the circumstances.
Holder admitted to the modest batting targets set before Australia of batting at least 100 overs and totalling 300 in each innings. They began way short but progressively improved, from 223 and 148 in Hobart, to 271, from 100.3 overs, and 283 (88.3 overs) in Melbourne, to 330 from 112.1 overs, in Sydney. They were very small steps towards revival.
Bravo, dominant at No.3, filled the gap of reliability left by Shivnarine Chanderpaul’s exit. A renewed sense of responsibility was allied to the familiar mirror image strokeplay of cousin Brian Lara; his average of 49.5 maintained his remarkable statistic of 51.18 in 22 overseas Tests, three runs better than Lara’s 47.8 .
He and the opener Kraigg Brathwaite, breaking out of his previous ultra-defensive cocoon to reveal a new range of shots, carried the top order; the utter failures of Marlon Samuels and Jermaine Blackwood that followed required recoveries from the late order.
At 35, Samuels’ chequered Test career surely ended in Sydney after nine innings in Sri Lanka and Australia for 65 runs and no score above 20. His successors are advancing their claims in the first-class Professional Cricket League (PCL) back home. Blackwood, the standout against England, is 24, with ample time to shake off the diffidence triggered by his double duck in Hobart.
The belated introduction of all-rounder Carlos Brathwaite at No.8 brought a refreshing awareness, self-belief and aggression that were transmitted to those around him. In Melbourne, 150 for five was converted to 282 and 83 for six to 271, in Sydney 159 for six became 330.
There were two closing half-centuries from under pressure wicket-keeper Denesh Ramdin, Holder’s one notable score and runs from the bowlers more useful than the wickets they managed.
Brathwaite’s attitude was typified by his clean straight six off his second ball in Sydney where he backed up his 59 in Melbourne with 69 off 71 balls. Built like a present-day Colin Croft, his bowling is well short of Croft’s menacing hostility, depending instead on control.
T20 franchises are likely to be soon enticing him with lucrative deals with; his mystifying omission from the list of 15 players placed on retainer contracts for the coming nine months is hardly an incentive for him to stick with the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB).
Attitude and slackness in the field were the West Indies’ other problems yet none was as pronounced as the inability to take wickets.
Jerome Taylor was the only one to top 140 kph; buckling under Australia’s immediate assault, his two wickets were at an average of 128.5.
The effects of a shoulder operation 15 months earlier were evident in Kemar Roach’s reduction in speed and effectiveness; he didn’t take a wicket from 41 overs and leaked runs at six an over. In the two Tests in Sri Lanka, his two wickets were at an average of 51.
As if he didn’t have enough to deal with, it pressed Holder, ideally a medium-fast, back-up third seamer, into taking the new ball himself, using the raw left-arm spinner Jomel Warrican throughout for more overs than anyone else and calling on Kraigg Brathwaite’s steady, speculative off-spin as totals mounted.
As history repeatedly shows, bowling of pace and hostility, in quality and quantity, is the key to successful teams. Except when Sonny Ramadhin and Alf Valentine burst onto the scene in the 1950s, the West Indies have always struggled to contain opponents in periods when the fast bowling cupboard was virtually bare.
In 1955 in the Caribbean, Australia amassed totals over 700 once, 600 twice and 500 once with one individual double-hundred and 11 singles on their way to a 3-0 series triumph. In 1957 in England, they conceded totals of 619 for six declared, 583 for four declared, 424 and 412 in three defeats by an innings.
The Australian Tests of 2015 were déjà vu.
It was a stark contrast to the years when Wes Hall, Roy Gilchrist and Charlie Griffith came along to create havoc or, especially, when Clive Lloyd could rustle up a four-pack from Garner, Croft, Roberts, Holding, Marshall, Daniel, Clarke and Davis.
Now such riches were Australia’s. Josh Hazelwood, James Pattinson, Peter Siddle and Mitch Marsh all exceeded 140 kph. Injury eliminated the left-arm spearhead Mitchell Starc from the one-sided contest; coach Rod Marsh reckoned there were 20 around the country he could call on without fear of failure.
With no prospective Halls, Holdings and Marshall in view, the situation is unlikely to change for the West Indies, no matter whether or not new batting stars come along.
