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.
These are the ones we’ll remember. The games filed away as great finishes, performances marked as the ones that defined them. Shamar Joseph and Tom Hartley, in these two cases, whose efforts will be remembered not only by the record-keepers and the history nuffies, but in hazy and romantic terms by a bigger proportion of the populace.
If England’s comeback looks bigger in scoreboard terms, it can’t claim to be as big an upset in the broader scheme. As the three cricket nations so much wealthier than any other, India or England beating one another or Australia should always be within the realms of the possible. Teams from outside that club face a far greater disadvantage when playing its members.
Hence the scope of mismatch in Brisbane. In Test cricket home or away this century, until last Sunday, West Indies had beaten Australia once in 29 attempts. That was another miracle, when Brian Lara captained the world record chase of 418, West Indies sneaking home with runs from the tail and three wickets in hand. It was at the batting paradise of the Antigua Recreation Ground, where 11 months later Lara would make 400 on his own.
That match aside, West Indies have returned four draws and 24 losses. Three of those draws were rain-affected. Four of the losses were by an innings, three were by more than 300 runs, four more were by at least 100 runs. Five losses were by nine or 10 wickets. Only two of the losses meet the statistician’s definition of a close result: three wickets in Bridgetown in 2012, and 35 runs in Perth in 2009. Both had West Indies chasing the game from a long way behind.
All of this – not just the history, but the disparity it reflects – is what the current West Indies team faced in Brisbane, with a painfully inexperienced squad against an opposition that is anything but. Success’s many progenitors fill the four days: Kavem Hodge and Joshua da Silva rescuing the first innings with the bat, Kemar Roach shaking off retirement calls with his new-ball burst in the second, Alzarri Joseph backing him up to keep Australia slightly in deficit. In the third, after being overwhelmed in Adelaide, the West Indies middle order making no big scores but scraping together enough runs to set a target of 216.
But almost any great upset requires one performance above all others, something potent enough to overturn the weight of odds against. Shamar Joseph’s was that, one last chance for an influence on the series after bashing runs and taking five wickets in Adelaide, then having his bowling tonked and his toe smashed while batting in Brisbane. His foot must have been screaming, but so was the ball out of his hand, getting closer to 150 kilometres per hour as his marathon spell went on.
Even in this last stanza, the ball often flew off the bat as fast as it came down. Seven wickets in 71 balls – meaning that the other 64 balls of his spell went for 68 runs, a rate of 5.74 per over. Five players in history have had a higher economy rate while taking five wickets or more. Nobody has leaked faster runs while taking seven. It was all action.
Yet those seven wicket-taking balls were each extraordinary, and were backed up as such in the field. The one to start it, leaping at Cameron Green like a gymnast over the vault, taking his elbow then on to his stumps. Bounce again to Mitchell Marsh, seaming away at the same time to take the shoulder of the bat, extra points for the deflected relay catch at slip. Bounce and pace to Pat Cummins, making him fend, and Da Silva playing gymnast this time with the catch. Bounce to draw Mitchell Starc’s attacking top edge after a run flurry.
In their own category, the three around the wicket to the left-handers: Travis Head, Alex Carey, Josh Hazlewood. One the perfect yorker that dipped at the crease, another searing pace on the angle halfway up middle, the third at the immaculate length to take the top of off-stump. Timber, timber, timber, and every way to reach it. Two of Australia’s most dangerous strikers in the space of six balls, and the last one to seal it.
You’d like to dream that this is the start of a new West Indies era, a spark to reignite the fire in Babylon. Especially with a new star who pledged after the match that Test cricket will come before T20 riches for him, every time. But that’s a lot to ask of a kid whose two Tests are part of a career of seven first-class matches. Lara had to carry a team on his back for years and it rarely worked. Injury, distraction, disenchantment are likely acquaintances. Even if Joseph flourishes, the reality of cricket’s disparity still exists. All that needs addressing doesn’t disappear in a magic afternoon.
But we have that afternoon. Another to think back on. The clunk of the off-stump tipping backwards, the upward tilt of voices in commentary, the sense of everything rushing forward, headlong, unstoppably. Those 11 figures in white flocking across the field, turning together, limbs arching out in all directions, like a cricket ground’s seagulls taking flight. All they want to do is be near Joseph, near the centre of the magic; following him in the way that we hope they will continue to do. And if that doesn’t happen, this still has. That’s the thing about pictures that live forever. He’ll always be running, running, running.
