BRIDGETOWN, Bar­ba­dos – Af­ter a mes­meris­ing dis­play of fast bowl­ing by Jay­den Seales and Shamar Joseph rocked Aus­tralia, West In­dies’ bat­ters fal­tered in the fi­nal ses­sion to leave the first Test match in­ter­est­ing­ly poised at the end of Wednes­day’s open­ing day that saw a shock­ing 14 wick­ets fall.

Seales claimed his third five-wick­et haul in Tests, while Joseph did the ear­ly dam­age by snar­ing four wick­ets, as Aus­tralia were rout­ed for 180 af­ter opt­ing to bat first at Kens­ing­ton Oval.

But the Aussies fought back, with Mitchell Starc grab­bing two wick­ets late on, to leave the home side tot­ter­ing on 57 for four, still 123 runs be­hind on first in­nings.

Aus­tralia cap­tain Pat Cum­mins hur­ried­ly chose to bat first af­ter win­ning the toss, but would have been sur­prised to see the bounce and move­ment Seales and Joseph were able to ex­tract.

Things could have been even worse for the vis­i­tors had the West In­dies held on to their chances, with Test debu­tant Bran­don King re­spon­si­ble for three dropped catch­es alone.

It didn’t take long for Joseph, who broke on­to the in­ter­na­tion­al scene with a sen­sa­tion­al per­for­mance in Aus­tralia last year, to con­tin­ue where he left off.

He pro­duced a quick de­liv­ery that jagged back sharply to beat Sam Kon­stas’ de­fense, and while the on field um­pire ini­tial­ly ruled not out, a re­view showed the ball would have crashed in­to leg stump, to leave Aus­tralia eight for one.

New bats­man Cameron Green should have been back in the pavil­ion with­out scor­ing af­ter fac­ing just two balls from Joseph, but King spilled a reg­u­la­tion catch at gul­ly.

Open­er Us­man Khawa­ja al­so rode his luck, with Chase putting down an easy chance at first slip off the un­lucky Joseph, when he was just six.

Green didn’t take ad­van­tage of his sec­ond life though, edg­ing Joseph to sec­ond slip where Justin Greaves took a good catch low down to his right, as Aus­tralia slipped to 14 for two.

Eight runs lat­er Seales got in on the act by hav­ing Josh Ing­lish caught by wick­et­keep­er Shai Hope af­ter the bats­man skied an at­tempt­ed pull shot.

Khawa­ja and Travis Head car­ried them to lunch at 65 for three as they set about try­ing to re­build the in­nings.

Khawa­ja was giv­en a sec­ond life­line by King, who dropped the left-han­der at gul­ly again when he was 45.

The two put on 89 runs for the fourth wick­et, but Joseph end­ed the part­ner­ship by hav­ing Khawa­ja caught be­hind for 47 af­ter edg­ing his at­tempt­ed pull shot.

Beau Web­ster nev­er looked com­fort­able in his brief stay at the crease, so it came as no sur­prise when Joseph pro­duced a beau­ty of a de­liv­ery that squared him and hit the top of off stump, as Aus­tralia stum­bled to 123 for five.

Seales then dis­missed Alex Carey for eight, be­fore medi­um pac­er Justin Greaves got the cru­cial wick­et of Head for the top­score of 59 short­ly af­ter the tea break.

Cum­mins coun­ter­at­tacked with some lofty blows in his 28 that took just 18 balls, but Seales wrapped up the tail by ac­count­ing for Starc for a duck, Cum­mins and Josh Ha­zle­wood, to fin­ish with fig­ures of 5-60 from 15.5 overs.

Joseph mean­while took 4-64.

Faced with a test­ing 90 min­utes, West In­dies’ open­ers Kraigg Brath­waite and John Camp­bell were both un­done by Starc.

Play­ing in his 99th Test match, Brath­waite made just four be­fore he edged the pac­er to sec­ond slip where Web­ster took a low catch, while Camp­bell edged a de­liv­ery that moved away from him be­hind to be out for sev­en, as the Windies stut­tered to 16 for two.

Kea­cy Car­ty and Bran­don King played pos­i­tive­ly dur­ing a 36-run part­ner­ship, but with less than half an hour to go, Car­ty played at a ris­ing de­liv­ery from Cum­mins that took the edge on the way through to the wick­et­keep­er.

Jomel War­ri­can was sent in as a night­watch­man, but he sur­vived just two balls be­fore he was un­done by a beau­ty from Josh Ha­zle­wood that clipped the off stump to see West In­dies crum­ble to 53 for four.

Cap­tain Ros­ton Chase, play­ing in his 50th Test match, sur­vived a few ner­vous mo­ments, but he and King en­sured there would be no fur­ther loss­es.

Starc has so far tak­en 2-35.

SUM­MARISED SCORES

AUS­TRALIA 180 in 56.5 overs (Travis Head 59, Us­man Khawa­ja 47, Pat Cum­mins 28, Beau Web­ster 11; Jay­den Seales 5-60, Shamar Joseph 4-46).

vs WEST IN­DIES 57-4 in 20 overs (Bran­don King 23 not out, Kea­cy Car­ty 20; Mitchell Starc 2-35).

(CMC)