Summer Sports Gordo’s Blog
A West Indian Cricket Test Series
HIGHLIGHTS
West Indies won their first test match against Australia since 1997.
In the first test, in a dream start to test cricket, Shamar Joseph, a right arm fast bowler from Guyana took a wicket with his very first ball in Test Match cricket. Even more impressive was the fact that this was the wicket of Steven Smith, Australia’s opening batsman and arguably the best defender of his wicket in the world. Joseph was a whirlwind, taking 5 wickets in the match.
Australia won the first test convincingly.
Many other exciting milestones were reached in the series- Joshua Hazlewood took his 250th wicket. The West Indies all-rounder Kevin Sinclair made his debut against Australia and scored 50 runs in the highest 9th wicket partnership for the West Indies.
In the second test at the Gabba, despite a damaged toe, Shamar Joseph took 7 wickets for 68 runs. Even an unbeaten 91 from Steve Smith could not stop the impact of Joseph and the West Indies pulled off an incredible 8 wicket win against Australia in a pink ball day/night test match.
Unsurprisingly, Joseph was Player of the Series.
LOWLIGHTS
The major disappointment of the Test Match Series was the Australian batting. Steve Smith took a while to settle in as an opener.
Middle order batsman Travis Head had mixed success. He made a King Pair – Golden Ducks in both innings of the second test, despite having scored a great match saving personal top score of 175 in the first Test Match.
Other shortcomings included the West Indies top order batsmen left too many runs for their tail end batsmen to score and lost the First Test Match.
STATUS OF THE GAME
Who said Test Match Cricket was dead?
Bazball put some enthusiasm into the game in the last Ashes series.
The second Test Match between the Australians and the West Indies was as exciting as any KFC Twenty-Twenty Big Bash League or Indian Premier League Twenty-Twenty Cricket Competition match.