Geoff Lemon's Blog, page 13

Young gun Cameron Green and old hand Nathan Lyon shine outside the spotlight | Geoff Lemon

If youngsters like Green fulfilling their potential inspires old players like Lyon to keep exploring theirs, Australia have a winning combination

You almost never want to be at the centre of Australia’s cricket conversation. Occasionally a player gets the spotlight for a good reason, like a run of form that is such deep purple that it leaves smoke on the water. But far more often, the move to centre stage is due to audience dissatisfaction: the desire to express angst about who isn’t playing well, who is getting an unfair advantage, who should already have made way for a worthier candidate unjustly confined to a lower grade of competition. Marnus Labuschagne is the latest occupant.

Cameron Green has never made it to the middle of that spotlight, but in recent months he had started to nudge into its circumference. Throughout his career he has been described as a player of potential, seen in terms of what he can be rather than what he is. The idea of a two-metre fast bowler who can also smash hundreds is compelling. But at some point players of potential have to deliver on it.

Green debuted in 2020, the year is now 2024. He has played 27 Tests, as many as serious cricketers like Bill O’Reilly, Bob Cowper, Darren Lehmann and Bruce Reid. So there was public dissent after David Warner’s retirement in January, when the batting order was unconventionally reshaped to accommodate Green at No 4.

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Australia v South Africa: one-off women’s Test, day two – as it happened

Look back on day two’s action at the Waca Ground

63rd over: Australia 284-5 (Sutherland 69, Gardner 18) I think that was deliberate from Gardner. Through the cordon for four, but along the ground, just pushes at the line of the ball gently but keeps it down. Not so with the next one, edged into the gully but on the bounce, just survives being squared up. Then more luck as a dive at deep backward square can’t save Gardner’s pull shot, another four, followed by a single on the same stroke. The lead is 208.

62nd over: Australia 275-5 (Sutherland 69, Gardner 9) Runs on offer from Hlubi though, too full and Sutherland pushes hands through the line and takes four through mid off.

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Australia v South Africa: one-off women’s Test, day one – as it happened

South Africa were dismissed for just 76 in their first-ever Test against Australia on day one at a baking hot Waca Ground in Perth

3rd over: South Africa 5-1 (Wolvaardt 2, Luus o) Inside edge for one as Wolvaardt presses forward at Garth. Another for Luus, dropping it to cover. Then another drop! Healy the culprit this time! Garth is the one who misses out, and it’s the last ball of her over too so she doesn’t get a chance to find another edge like Brown did. Healy in front of Litchfield at first slip, has to go a long way and the ball swings too far off Wolvaardt’s edge. They get a run.

2nd over: South Africa 2-1 (Wolvaardt 2, Luus o) A single for Wolvaardt from the first ball, to square leg, then Brown but the squeeze on Bosch, who must have been nervous. What a disappointment, opening and then being back in the rooms so soon. Sune Luus is batting at three. Started her career as a leg-spinner. Nobody does that…

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Glenn Maxwell’s rare form defies run of injury, mishaps and self-inflicted setbacks

The all-rounder has plundered runs in ODIs and T20Is but has had few chances to make his mark for Australia in Test cricket

Since Glenn Maxwell walked to the middle in Delhi at the end of last October during the World Cup, he has batted for Australia in five ODIs and four T20Is. Nine innings, four not outs, four centuries, 597 runs at an average of 119.

Monster figures already, then factor in the strike rate of 186 – one player scoring north of 11 runs an over on his own. In a way, his 120 from 55 balls against West Indies in Adelaide on Sunday was the most perfect of the lot.

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Shamar Joseph alone won’t revive West Indies but memories will remain

With seven stunning wickets the fast bowler turned a Test in his second match but the reality of cricket’s disparity still exists

Once in a rare while, Test cricket gives you days like these. The entire West Indies team racing into the deepest corner of the outfield, running in pure celebration, billowing out behind one another like streamers, only able to stop when the fence gets in the way. Winners by eight runs against one of the toughest home sides at one of the toughest away grounds, Australia in Brisbane, having finished the first session of the Test on 64 for five.

A couple of hours later, halfway around the world in Hyderabad, England complete another unlikely win against the only tougher host. It doesn’t matter which ground India use, any is a fortress, and England have come from 190 runs down on the first innings, bowling out India 29 runs from a win. Both Tests have been decided in the fourth innings with seven wickets from a barely known bowler in his debut series.

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West Indies 266-8 after hard-fought comeback against Australia – as it happened

Kavem Hodge and Joshua Da Silva were key as the tourists shocked the hosts in the second Test at the Gabba

3rd over: West Indies 4-0 (Brathwaite 4, Chanderpaul 0) Brathwaite plays and misses at another full ball and then squirts an edge from a back of length ball that doesn’t carry to third slip. Starc stitches together a maiden – his pink ball record is exemplary: 61 wickets @ a lick over 18s. When those floodlights come on later he’ll be licking his lips once more.

2nd over: West Indies 4-0 (Brathwaite 4, Chanderpaul 0) Cripes! The first ball from Josh Hazlewood thuds into Brathwaite’s front pad and is given out by the on field umpire but the decision is overturned. There was a sizeable inside edge. Jittery start for the visitors and the officials. My oh my. Next ball Brathwaite aims a booming drive but connects only with the Brisbane breeze. Settle down now. A clip to leg brings a couple to the Windies skipper and he pokes to mid-on for a single to keep the strike. The ball is zipping through off the surface, don’t go anywhere.

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Australia’s drubbing of once-great West Indies sad proof Test cricket mismatches must end

The challenge facing Test cricket, of how to keep it healthy in places where it isn’t thriving, is being played out most starkly in the West Indies

By now, we’ve done all the stories about West Indies cricket and its sad decline. Heard them, read them, written them. Tour after tour of pining for the past, mumbling the names of frightening former greats like a fast-bowling rosary. The thing is, after the current team got done by 10 wickets before lunch on day three at Adelaide, there was much less of this stuff. The glory days are so far behind us that even their lamentation has become vintage.

Fair enough, too. The start of the great West Indies era is nearly 50 years past. Even its last flickers in 1999 were a quarter of a century ago. One might as well pine for Richie Benaud bowling around the wicket at Old Trafford. By now Australia dishing out a heavy beating to the Caribbean team is just contemporary reality.

There was no better example than the television broadcast closing with Brendon Julian’s closing mention that Australia had retained the Frank Worrell Trophy. The line was carefully enunciated to avoid the unfortunate spoonerism he produced after the corresponding series in 2015, but it was a quick aside just before heading to a long ad break and a match replay.

Compare that to 1995, when it was the biggest prize in the world for Australia, finally claiming it after West Indies teams had held it for eight series in a row. This is a trophy that was struck in the heat of public fervour for the brilliant West Indies visit of 1960-61. These days it’s an afterthought, its recipient decided after one match in this two-Test encounter that doesn’t deserve to be called a series.

West Indies’ women have played one Test in 45 years and will probably never play another. West Indies men are still functional at the lower end of the scale. They generally beat Zimbabwe and Bangladesh, have picked off a few against Pakistan and Sri Lanka, and somehow keep winning series against England when hosting, while picking off the odd Test while visiting.

But it’s nearly ten years since they beat New Zealand in a Test. The last time they beat South Africa was 2007. The last time they beat Australia was 2003. Against India it was 2002. The last time in Australia was 1997. Or look at it this way: West Indies’ last 50 Test wins take us back to the famous one at Kingston in 1999. West Indies’ last 50 losses only date back to Lord’s 2012.

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Australia thrash West Indies by 10 wickets: first Test, day three – as it happened

Australia have defeated the West Indies by 10 wickets in the first Test, securing victory before lunch on day three at Adelaide Oval

27th over: West Indies 84-7 (A. Joseph 10, Motie 0) Successful over for Starc. Motie comes out at No9. Only Roach and Joseph #2 to come.

Aahhhhhhhgghhhh! Why! Joshua da Silva, who gets out to an immensely stupid pull shot in the first innings, gets out to an immensely stupid pull shot in the second innings. You’ve got catchers out for it, you’ve got bowlers with pace and lift sending it down at you, and you keep playing it even though the reward is usually only a single. And eventually, even if you score a few, you get out. That’s what he does here, top edge to fine leg, simple as can be.

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Australia v West Indies: first Test, day two – as it happened

Travis Head’s century was the decisive act on day two before Josh Hazlewood’s four wickets almost finished West Indies off

26th over: Australia 75-3 (Khawaja 35, Head 1) Head taps his sixth ball through covers to get off the mark. Khawaja now springs into life, springing onto his toes to viciously pull Alzarri Joseph to the boundary wide of mid-on. His strike rate might be under 48 but that’s Khawaja’s fifth four. Of course he should’ve been out caught by keeper Da Silva yesterday when he was just 6.

25th over: Australia 69-3 (Khawaja 31, Head 0) Shamar Joseph enters his eighth over with Australia trailing by 119 runs. Khawaja is content to let the first length balls two pass. He tries to get bat on the legside ball that follows but can’t. Joseph is slinging them down in the high 130s. He’s not a tall man – more Malcolm Marshall than Joel Garner – but his feats in this Test will make sure he’s forever a big man in his home town of Baracara, Guyana (pop 350).

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Australia v West Indies: first Test, day one – as it happened

New opener Steve Smith was dismissed early as Australia chased West Indies’ 188 at Adelaide Oval

4th over: West Indies 14-0 (Brathwaite 8, Chanderpaul 6) More luck! Hazlewood angled an inswinger into Brathwaite and it caught an inside edge, just missing the stumps and skidding away for another lucky boundary. Good bowling by the Bendemeer Bullet! Brathwaite flicks a single off the pads to run a single. Big shout for lbw on the final ball but no one’s interetested beyond Hazlewood, least of all the umpires.

3rd over: West Indies 9-0 (Brathwaite 3, Chanderpaul 6) Starc gets Brathwaite hopping with the first but sprays the second down legside. He connects handsomely with a drive down the ground to the third and it Labuschagne hauls it in under just shy of the rope at the scoreboard. Chanderpaul tries to leave the next one but too late! It catches the descending blade, flies off the toe of the bat and balloons over slips for a streaky four. He’s smiling about it but that could have been disastrous.

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