Australia v West Indies First Test Report Card, Day Two

Featuring dismantling shuffles, Pat Cummins' gluttony and The Marnus Paradox

Dismantling Shuffles
Grade: D

The day began with Cameron Green and Usman Khawaja looking to build a big first innings lead for Australia. Unfortunately, Shamar Joseph had other ideas. Most relevant of those ideas, for the purposes of this Test, was the idea that he’d quite like to have Cameron Green caught behind in the second over of the day.

This wasn’t just a pie-in-the-sky fancy, either. Or even a pie-halfway-down-the-pitch fancy. No, Joseph had an idea and the gumption to follow through. He sent Green packing, in the process dismantling the entire Warner replacement shuffle. Shamar Joseph may well be the best thing that ever happened to Cameron Bancroft.

He didn’t stop there, either, taking two more wickets to finish with a brilliant five wicket haul on debut, bowing as he left the field to an appreciative Adelaide crowd. 

More cricketers should bow, I say. Or, indeed, curtsy. Curtsy Ambrose? Don’t tell me you don’t want to see that.

The bowing Joseph and the rest of the disappointingly upright West Indies attack kept plugging away at the Australian batters, much to the chagrin of most of the commentators.

Having spent most of the first day talking up the magnificence of the Australian attack and their incredibly ability to dismiss the opposition cheaply, it was infuriating for them to see the Australian batters now confronted with a tricky pitch that was leading them to be dismissed cheaply.

At one stage, when they were 5/129, in reply to the West Indies’ 188, it appeared that Australia might not even get ahead. Then, of course, they realised they already had a Head.

Travis Head, to be precise. He scored 119 (134), and helped Australia eventually take a first innings lead of 95.