Hey, look! It’s cricket. Featuring Australia. Batting for more than twenty overs (albeit, only just more for this particular match). Why, it must be the ODI Tri-Series between the West Indies, South Africa and Australia taking place in the Caribbean.
Here are the ratings for Game 2 of the Tri-Series, the first one featuring Australia, between the West Indies and Steve Smith’s men.
Mitchell Starc’s Return
Grade: C
Steve Smith won the toss and elected to bowl, mostly, I assume, due to the excitement of seeing Mitchell Starc back in the team. The last time Starc had played was in the Day/Night Test against New Zealand in Adelaide six months ago, when, as you’ll recall, he hopped the winning run with a broken foot.
Here, he started the exact opposite of the way he left off. Namely, by bowling the first ball of the match with a non-broken foot in the daylight hours of a limited overs match. Also, he was now married.
Still, in his first over, this Bizarro-Starc creature took a wicket. And wasted Australia’s only review. And bowled a wild no ball full toss above waist height.
So he’ll do. Welcome back, Mitch.
Carlos Brathwaite
Grade: B+
Most Australians probably last saw Carlos Brathwaite in international cricket clubbing Ben Stokes for four consecutive sixes to win the West Indies the World T20 championship. (Unless, of course, they watched him the other day making eight from fourteen deliveries against South Africa in the first game of this tri-series.)
In this game, Brathwaite came in on a hat-trick with his team in grave trouble at 5/70. Consolidating as his teammates succumbed around him, he hung around until he was the last man out for 21 off just 48 deliveries.
Sorry. I don’t have a joke here. I just wanted everybody to think about that Ben Stokes over once more.
Spin Twins
Grade: D
I’ve complained before about the phrase ‘spin twins’ and how it should only be reserved for actual siblings who sprang forth jointly in proximate time and space from their mother’s womb to indulge in the tweaking arts.
Just because words rhyme doesn’t make them true. Catches don’t win matches. Full tosses don’t cause losses. And cricketing teammates who spin are almost never, in my experience, twins.
This is certainly true of Adam Zampa and Nathan Lyon, who were born almost 40 years apart and who were both selected here.
The unlikely pair rewarded the faith of the Australian selectors by taking three wickets each, helping to knock over the West Indies for just 116 in 32.3 overs, a pair of efforts that would ultimately lead to Australia easily winning the match.
Which just goes to prove the age-old saying that game-winning three-fers make tame innings briefer.
Tricky mini-sessions
Grade: B+
So swiftly had the Australians dismissed the West Indies that openers David Warner and Aaron Finch found themselves striding to the middle for a quick ten overs before the scheduled innings break.
In a Test match, this would be considered a tricky mini-session and would be used as a strategic ploy by any declaration-happy captain worth his salt. (Note: this assumes captains are still being paid in food seasoning.)
However, in one day internationals, the trickiness of batting for just half an hour or so before the break is undercut slightly by the fact that this only ever transpires when the team batting first collapses and is bowled out well short of their fifty overs for a trifling total.
But what if that wasn’t the case? It must surely be only a matter of time before a team batting first tactically races to a massive total in just 35 or so overs and then throws all their wickets away to force the opposition to face the tricky mini-session with the added threat of a huge required run rate looming over their head.
It’s a shame Brendon McCullum retired. I feel like this kind of big-hitting, lateral-thinking ploy would be right up his lateral-hitting, big-thinking alley.
Ashes preparation
Grade: A
Despite the loss of Aaron Finch before the break, David Warner and Usman Khawaja resumed the innings afterwards, as the game entered the dreaded Bonus Point Speculation™ stage.
Australia then lost Khawaja, caught by Jason Holder off the bowling of Sulieman Benn, for 27 off 38 deliveries. Incidentally, when a catch lobs in the air, is there anybody with a better name to have under it than Holder? Apart, of course, from this suggestion offered by the inimitable Dave Tickner on Twitter.
@LiebCricket Catchy McCatchface
— Dave Tickner (@tickerscricket) June 5, 2016
Sunil Narine soon after snared Steve Smith (LBW to a ball that turned far more than could be seen with the naked eye and not reviewed or overturned for 6 off 10 deliveries) and Glenn Maxwell (bowled, inexplicably not slog-switch-hitting for six, for a duck off two deliveries), but Warner and the ever-reliable-ish Mitch Marsh guided their team to a bonus point victory.
Australia, therefore, earned themselves five points for the win, which is a healthy 25% more than England got for winning an entire Test match. Surely, Australia now take a massive psychological advantage into the next Ashes.
It was a journey for Fraser-McGurk, copping one in the unmentionables, smashing a 19-ball 50, then falling to an ugly full-toss from Ashwin.
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