Aussies First Test Takeaways: Take 5!

Despite having presented yet another loss of such a match played Down Under, the recently concluded first Test against their Aussie hosts has provided the West Indies team with some extremely useful takeaways.

The lessons from which can be of excellent value to both the team and its selectors moving forward. By the time the Test had concluded with Australia winning by 164 runs on the fifth and final day, at least five such takeaways had become evident.

The first of those was, of course, the likelihood that in their captain Kraigg Brathwaite and his new-found partner Tagenarine Chanderpaul, the West Indies have now finally found an opening batting pair fully capable of providing their innings with the solid starts that are a fundamental requirement of eventual sufficiently large totals. Brathwaite was his usual dependable self, leading from the front top scoring in both innings with knocks of 64 and 110 in the West Indies’ respective first and second innings totals of 283 and 333.

Brathwaite’s second innings century was his eleventh in Tests for the West Indies as an opener. Demonstrated evidence of his continuing reliability at the top of the team’s batting order. For the West Indies batting cause, however, the far more welcoming revelation was to be found at the other end in the form of Brathwaite’s new opening batting partner, the 26-year-old Tagenarine Chanderpaul.

Playing in his debut Test, on a bowler-friendly pitch and against one of the strongest bowling attacks in international cricket, Chanderpaul fashioned scores of 51 and 45 in his two crease appearances. Of much greater significance than his actual scores was how they were compiled. In both innings Chanderpaul demonstrated the technical soundness and mental stubbornness that had been the hallmarks of his father Shivanrine’s legendary career as one of the greatest batsmen the West Indies has ever produced.

Brathwaite and Chanderpaul recorded an opening-pair partnership of 78 in the West Indies’ first innings. They went even further in the second, posting 116 before Chanderpaul departed after having contributed 45 of those runs. Their partnerships were the highest for the West Indies in either innings and provided the backbone for the eventual totals which also encouragingly were composed of approximately 100 overs of batting. The West Indies batted for 98.2 overs in the first innings and 110.5 in the second, achieving in the process their established pre-match objective of batting for at least 100 overs.

Unfortunately, for the West Indies, the solidity demonstrated by Brathwaite and Chanderpaul as the opening pair failed to be replicated by the batsmen who followed at 3, 4 and 5. The West Indies’ top order crumbled in both innings to wholly undermine the efforts of the opening pair, consequently allowing Australia to maintain the scoring supremacy that was in the end the foundation for its eventual victory.

In the West Indies’ first innings Nkrumah Bonner, Jermaine Blackwood and Kyle Mayers batting at number two, three and four had scores of 16, 36 and 1 respectively. Bonner who was hit on the head because of ducking into a Cameron Green bouncer with his eyes turned side-on and way from the ball, retired hurt, taking no further part in the match as Shamarh Brooks was brought in as his concussion replacement. Brooks batting at number seven made a useful 33 before becoming both wicket-keeper Alex Carey, as well as Green’s only scalp of the West Indies’ first innings.

In at number three as Bonner’s replacement for the second innings, Brooks became the first of Nathan Lyon’s eventual five victims, caught at slip by Steve Smith for a paltry 11. Blackwood at four was victim number two, caught by Labuschagne for 24. Mayers at five completed Lyon’s rout of the West Indies’ top order, caught at first slip by Smith after having made just 10.

Mayers’ abject failures in both innings, first to the pace and swing of Mitchell Starc and then to the spinning guile of Nathan Lyon, were indicative of the validity of the suspicion held by many, knowledgeable, West Indies cricket fans that his technical deficiencies as a top-order batsman are sufficient to dictate his quick dismissals by world-class bowlers. The greater majority of Mayers’ major scores in Tests played to date have been made against the lowly attacks of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. The 210* he scored in his debut Test was made against a Bangladesh attack that was completely devoid of its very best bowler, their captain and world-class leg spinner Shakib Al Hasan.

If the West Indies Test team is to become sufficiently competitive against the higher ranked ICC Test teams such as Australia, India, England, South Africa and New Zealand, batting for 100 overs while registering lowly, sub-par totals of under 350 won’t get them very far in terms of fulfilling any such objective. Moving forward the top order will have to provide much greater support to the opening-partnership efforts of Brathwaite and Chanderpaul in terms of compiling more challenging totals. A change of personnel for the numbers three and five positions now, therefore, seems to be fully warranted. Brandon King, Shimron Hetmeyer and Shai Hope are three who should be considered and tried as suitable top-order replacement candidates for the West Indies’ next scheduled Test Series which will be away to Zimbabwe for two matches next March.

By the end of this Aussie Series, the second and final Test of which is scheduled to be played from December 8th to 12th as an Adelaide Oval-hosted pink ball encounter, the West Indies’ Selectors may also have a Roston Chase conundrum to unravel. Supposedly chosen for the Series and selected for the first Test primarily for his off-spinning capabilities, Chase failed abjectly to have an impact on proceedings as a bowler. His returns in the Test were 0/140 from 31 overs in Australia’s first innings and one for 31 from six overs in the second.

Chase, however, had a most welcome return to form with the bat in the West Indies second innings.

Having failed in the first in scoring just 13, he batted stubbornly in the second, posting 55 before becoming yet another of Lyon’s 5 for victims. Chase’s 55 was only his second half-century in his last 15 Test appearances for the West Indies.

Chase will have further opportunities to confirm his spin-bowling credentials in the forthcoming second Test. How he fares should present the West Indies selectors with suitable answers to the conundrum they might otherwise be facing in having to decide on the exact role he should be occupying in the team beyond the current tour. That of a front-line spinner or a reversion to his previous role as primarily a batting all-rounder with supportive off-spinning capabilities?

The overall composition of the West Indies bowling attack is another area the West Indies selectors will have to spend some time deliberating over. As formidable as it appeared to be on paper, the West Indies seam attack of Kemar Roach, Jason Holder, Alzarri Joseph and Jayden Seales proved to be far less so during the Test. In combination, the West Indies seamers accounted for only two of the six Aussie wickets that fell in a display that was disappointingly ragged and sloppy.

At no point whatsoever did the West Indies attack seem capable of capturing the 20 Australian wickets that would have been necessary to win the Test. The Adelaide second Test will provide all the aforementioned seamers with sufficient opportunities to give much better accounts of themselves. Should they fail to do so, questions will then legitimately arise as to the personnel composition and whether changes would be required to increase its wicket-taking potency for future Test match encounters.

The fifth and final takeaway to be gleaned from the West Indies’ first Test performance against their Aussie hosts is that despite the readily apparent negatives, under Kraigg Brathwaite’s leadership the team now has some of the basic components that could potentially allow its transformation into a top-ranked unit in the foreseeable future. A strengthening of the top-order batting particularly at numbers three and four and some added real pace and legitimate spin potency to the bowling are the necessary tweaks that will be required to ensure such a transformation.

A further requirement will be that of a far more competent coaching cadre. One which will be comprised of a sufficiently motivational Head Coach and inspirational bowling Deputy, as well as a batting Assistant who actually makes a far more useful contribution than the incumbent Monty Desai’s practice of standing resolutely just beyond the point or square leg boundary, the area of the ground that is furthest away from the crease and offering the most disadvantageous views, in supposedly willing his charges on. As Brian Lara was forced to observe during his television commentary’ “He (Desai) must extraordinarily good eyes to be seeing anything of value from there!”

Guyana-born, Toronto-based, Tony McWatt is the Publisher of both the WI Wickets and Wickets/monthly online cricket magazines that are respectively targeted toward Caribbean and Canadian readers. He is also the only son of the former Guyana and West Indies wicket-keeper batsman the late Clifford “Baby Boy” McWatt.