A lift in form from the West Indies will see the Boxing Day Test survive into a fourth day at least, after the visitors achieved a suprising steadiness at the crease on Monday.
Darren Bravo and debutant Carlos Brathwaite formed a significant partnership of 90 runs on Monday morning, lifting the side from what looked like a complete collapse to a more respectable total.
BOXING DAY TEST FULL SCOREBOARD
Brathwaite achieved a half-century on debut, finishing with 59 off 126 balls before he was caught and bowled by Nathan Lyon with the visitors then on 173 runs.
Kemar Roach came in and he too was able to hang tough for at least a little while putting together a 42-run partnership with Bravo.
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Bravo would ultimately survive to be the last wicket taken, also partnering with Jerome Taylor and Jomel Warrican as the day wore on, until he became James Pattinson’s fourth wicket of the innings. Nathan Lyon also took four, Peter Siddle two.
The West Indies ultimately achieved an innings of 271, still well short of the lead but certainly an improvement on their results in Hobart, and more than would’ve been expected given their position last night.
Where the West Indies improved with the bat they also seemed to improve with the ball, and it was not long into Australia’s second innings before they had felled both the openers, Joe Burns (4) the first to fall before David Warner (17).
A partnership of Usman Khawaja and Steve Smith proved a bit more stable and Khawaja reached 56 before his wicket was taken by Jason Holder.
That left Steve Smith at the crease to be joined by Mitch Marsh and they batted out the day, with Smith bringing his total up to 70 and Marsh reaching 18 before stumps. Australia are 3/179 heading into the fourth day and hold a comfortable lead of 459 runs.
One would suspect that from here the team will look to build up the lead a little more on the fourth day, somewhere into the 500s, before likely declaring once again and looking to bowl the West Indies out for the win.
It’s a credit to the West Indies side that they were able to respond to a lot of harsh criticism today and play some fairly competitive cricket – the match still looks a dead certainty to be an Australian victory, but they’re going to survive much longer than they did in Hobart.
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