Aus­tralia has of­fi­cial­ly re­tained the Sir Frank Wor­rell tro­phy, hav­ing won the sec­ond test by a tidy 133 runs and there­by tak­ing an unas­sail­able 2-0 lead in the three-test se­ries. And frankly, every­thing’s gone ac­cord­ing to script.

Just as they did when they de­feat­ed Aus­tralia in Bris­bane in the fi­nal test in Jan­u­ary 2024 and Pak­istan in the fi­nal test in Jan­u­ary 2025, if they win the fi­nal day/night test in Ja­maica start­ing to­mor­row, it would be an­oth­er mir­a­cle for the his­to­ry books. Now, let’s be clear: the West In­dies con­tin­ues to pos­sess ex­cel­lent fast bowlers. Give them a help­ful sur­face, like the ones in Bar­ba­dos or Grena­da, and they have the tal­ent to dis­miss any­one. But the mo­ment I see those help­ful con­di­tions and a favourable bowl­ing pitch, a lit­tle voice in my head (the one that al­ways knows best) whis­pers, “How’s the bat­ting go­ing to cope?” And true to form, the bat­ting line­up served up a hearty plate of dis­ap­point­ment for the en­tire Caribbean.

Aus­tralia bowl­ing was tac­ti­cal

I un­der­stand it can be dis­tress­ing, like bit­ing in­to a choco­late chip cook­ie and dis­cov­er­ing that it’s oat­meal raisin. But let’s be re­al: fac­ing Aus­tralia’s bowl­ing at­tack of Mitchell Starc (395 Test wick­ets), Josh Ha­zle­wood (292 Test wick­ets), Pat Cum­mins (307 Test wick­ets) and Nathan Ly­on (a dizzy­ing 562 Test wick­ets) – on a pitch with in­con­sis­tent bounce, and start­ing to turn on the fourth day – is a night­mare sce­nario for most teams, if the Test lasts that long. West In­dies man­aged to get to the fourth day of the sec­ond test, but Ly­on’s three sec­ond-in­nings wick­ets came cour­tesy of our low­er or­der, who de­cid­ed that swip­ing wild­ly at any ball giv­en some air was a valid Test match strat­e­gy. They hit a cou­ple of six­es, sure, but the law of av­er­ages al­ways catch­es up. The bats­men had to mishit one, and the field­ers were po­si­tioned on the bound­ary to take the catch­es, prac­ti­cal­ly hold­ing up signs that said “Catch Here!”

The Aus­tralians put their heads down, and most, if not all, were dis­missed by good de­liv­er­ies. They as­sessed the pitch, ne­go­ti­at­ed the swing, and em­braced the rad­i­cal con­cept of play­ing straight (es­pe­cial­ly Steve Smith, who prob­a­bly has “Play Straight” tat­tooed on the back of his eye­lids).

Windies bats­men looked out of depth

The West In­dies bats­men nev­er seemed to come to terms with the move­ment and bounce. Shai Hope was par­tic­u­lar­ly dis­ap­point­ing, try­ing to hit his way out of trou­ble like it was a T20 fête match. On a pitch like that, play­ing across the line is less a mis­take and more of a car­di­nal sin.

I did say on nu­mer­ous oc­ca­sions that I have a lot of time for Bran­don King, and it was a se­lec­tion that I backed from King Sam­my. At least he got some­thing right with this se­lec­tion of King. When it comes to the open­ers, Kraigg Brath­waite and John Camp­bell, King Sam­my will have to solve the mys­te­ri­ous ‘case of the miss­ing runs’. Those two look less like Test crick­eters and more like lost tourists who ac­ci­den­tal­ly wan­dered on­to the field.

Brath­waite, with scores of 4, 4, 0, and 7, has com­plete­ly lost his way (maybe he can’t see be­cause of the shades?).

I take my hat off to him; he’s been a loy­al ser­vant to West In­dies crick­et. But the time has come to thank him pro­fuse­ly and wish him all the best in his re­tire­ment. Camp­bell is slight­ly bet­ter with scores of 7, 23, 40, and 0. His two “de­cent” scores (23 and 40) saw him get out in pure school­boy fash­ion, as if the overs were run­ning out and the team need­ed 10 an over in the last five.

Did no one re­mind him this was Test crick­et, and his job was to see off the new ball, bat for aeons, and build a plat­form? Had he been play­ing for an­oth­er coun­try, he would have been told, “Thanks for com­ing; don’t call us; we’ll call you…”

Where are

our open­ers

Kea­cy Car­ty’s scores of 20, 20, 6, and 10 at num­ber 3 aren’t ex­act­ly scream­ing “next bat­ting sen­sa­tion”. How­ev­er, I do em­pathise with him; when your open­ers are head­ing back to the pavil­ion faster than Os­car Pi­as­tri and Lan­do Nor­ris, you have no pro­tec­tion and be­come an open­er your­self, on­ly with­out the ben­e­fit of be­ing pre­pared for it. He needs to learn quick­er than a McLaren that Test crick­et is not a joyride!

Ros­ton Chase is cer­tain­ly try­ing as cap­tain to be pos­i­tive, but scores of 44, 2, 16, and 34 aren’t ex­act­ly in­spir­ing con­fi­dence that a bat­ting rev­o­lu­tion is around the cor­ner. How­ev­er, I do think he is giv­ing his best, but again, this is Aus­tralia, and he needs to be per­form­ing at a max­i­mum lev­el.

Justin Greaves seems to be play­ing as an all-rounder but should take an ex­am­ple from Beau Web­ster, who plays the same role with much more ef­fec­tive­ness for Aus­tralia.

Web­ster came in at crit­i­cal times, showed prop­er tech­nique, and was ex­treme­ly ef­fi­cient down the or­der for the Aussies.

All in all, the West In­dies bat­ting is not up to Test stan­dard, and King Sam­my has to be bold and make some nec­es­sary changes to the bat­ting line­up. As I write this, the team for the fi­nal Test hasn’t been an­nounced. We were promised that strong re­gion­al per­for­mances would in­flu­ence se­lec­tions, but that seems to be more of the same “old talk” of the high­est or­der.

Kevlon An­der­son, with 573 runs and the third high­est ag­gre­gate, can’t get a look in the fi­nal eleven. What about the for­got­ten man, 583-run Joshua Da Sil­va? What about Al­ick Athanaze and Amir Jan­goo, both young enough to be giv­en fresh op­por­tu­ni­ties, es­pe­cial­ly with the se­ries al­ready gone with the wind? It’s time for some se­ri­ous reshuf­fling.

The need to

build in­nings

It ap­pears that the bats­men can­not con­struct an in­nings; it is not all about shot-mak­ing and try­ing to take the at­tack to the bowlers. Here’s a thought: Crick­et West In­dies (CWI) are ex­treme­ly for­tu­nate, as they have, in Gor­don Greenidge and Desmond Haynes, ar­guably the best open­ing com­bi­na­tion in the his­to­ry of Test crick­et. Why not call them in? Let them talk to the bats­men about build­ing an in­nings, nav­i­gat­ing tricky pitch­es, seiz­ing the ini­tia­tive, frus­trat­ing bowlers, and what to prac­tise in the nets. Let them have men­tal prepa­ra­tion ses­sions with all the bats­men.

If it’s not a case of abil­i­ty, then it’s a case of men­tal for­ti­tude.

The bowlers have been su­perb, but the crowds will not come back to see bats­men strug­gling. Look at Eng­land: two Test match­es go­ing five days, cen­turies ga­lore on both sides! This brings me to my fi­nal, cru­cial point: the pitch­es. They must be bet­ter pre­pared for Test match­es.

CWI, bring in the cu­ra­tor from Head­in­g­ley! Find out the se­crets for prepar­ing a pitch that lasts five days, pro­duces a re­sult, sees near­ly 1,700 runs scored, and still al­lows 35 wick­ets to fall. That is Test crick­et. That is what brings the fans back.

De­spite the cur­rent chal­lenges, my faith in West In­dies crick­et re­mains un­shak­en. The team has the raw tal­ent, the pas­sion­ate fans, and a rich his­to­ry to draw up­on. The road ahead may be tough, but with ded­i­cat­ed ef­fort from play­ers, shrewd de­ci­sion-mak­ing from man­age­ment, and the un­wa­ver­ing sup­port of the Caribbean faith­ful, the West In­dies can cer­tain­ly turn the tide.

This isn’t a time for de­spair but for a re­newed be­lief in what we can achieve. With the right ad­just­ments, the right mind­set, and a col­lec­tive com­mit­ment to ex­cel­lence, West In­dies crick­et will rise again.

Come on, CWI, to­geth­er with King Sam­my! It’s time for ac­tion and time to re­build with pur­pose and a strong be­lief in the fu­ture of West In­dies crick­et!

Ed­i­tor’s note: The views ex­pressed in the pre­ced­ing ar­ti­cle are sole­ly those of the au­thor and do not re­flect the views of any or­gan­i­sa­tion in which he is a stake­hold­er.