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A Steven Smith century and some baffling West Indian tactics allowed Australia to take control on the first day of the Jamaica Test. They will now look to drill home the advantage on the second day and you can follow the live scores of this second Test from 1am AEST on Saturday morning.
The decision to bowl first looked to be vindicated for the West Indies at one stage, when they had both the Aussie openers dismissed with just 16 on the board. With Jerome Taylor hooping the ball around the way he did, another wicket could have pegged them back even further.
Instead, it was the erratic Kemar Roach who caught Michael Clarke’s leading edge only for the third umpire to rule it a no-ball for overstepping. Things declined steadily for West Indies after that and Australia took control of the game through Smith, Clarke and Adam Voges.
While both Clarke and Voges could be kicking themselves for not converting from their scores of 47 and 37, Smith had no such problems. He got to his ninth Test century and fifth in six Tests to continue with the kind of form that had made him a force to reckon in the last 12 or so months.
Shane Watson was at the crease with Smith when stumps were drawn, having been involved in a 48-run stand for the fifth wicket after partnerships with Clarke and Voges yielded 118 and 76 respectively for Australia.
It could have gotten bad for Australia though. Apart from that Clarke wicket off a no-ball – they would have been three for 22 at that stage – there was a dropped catch and a missed run-out opportunity too. But more importantly, West Indies went on the defensive far too early.
For starters, the part-time bowling options of Kraigg Brathwaite and Jermaine Blackwood shared a total of 20 overs between them. That’s an indicator of how the captain Denesh Ramdin had little faith in some of his frontline bowlers.
Then there was a matter of removing Taylor off the attack after he had bowled just five overs and giving him just one more over before the lunch break and a total of 15 overs in the day. Surely with figures of 6-6-0-2 at one stage and 15-8-18-3 by close, he deserved a better look-in.
But what was probably the strangest pieces of captaincy from Ramdin had to be to do with what happened after the new ball became due. Ramdin had seen what the first new ball had done, swung around and made life miserable for the batsmen. And yet, he opted not to take it.
So it was the spin of Permaul and Brathwaite that bowled through most of those 10 overs, content in attempting to tie the batsmen down instead of wanting to aggressively poach a few wickets.
Taylor’s explanation in the end of day press conference made little sense.
He said: “The old ball was working for us. We didn’t know what the new ball would have been like. So, what was happening was the work we were doing, bowling as well as possible, and see what we could get out of it. So, it is about taking the new ball tomorrow, at whatever time, and at the end of the day it is what it is. It is a good team effort.”
The definition of ‘working’ in the above statement is up for interpretation but it was certainly not getting them wickets. A new ball could have done that and at the even at the expense of giving away 20 extra runs, it was a risk worth taking.
Australia will be aiming at a 400-plus total going into the second day and with those many on the board, life might not get easier for West Indies.
Follow the live scores & blog of this West Indies v Australia 2nd Test match from 0100 hours AEDT on Saturday and post your comments in the section below.
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