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Thursday, July 17, 2025

Windies, Australia in tight battle for upper hand in opening Test

by

Sport Desk
20 days ago
20250627
West Indies' captain Shai Hope plays a shot against Australia on day two of the first cricket Test match at Kensington Stadium in Bridgetown, Barbados, yesterday.

West Indies' captain Shai Hope plays a shot against Australia on day two of the first cricket Test match at Kensington Stadium in Bridgetown, Barbados, yesterday.

AP Photo

BRIDGETOWN – West In­dies and Aus­tralia are locked in an in­tense bat­tle for su­prema­cy fol­low­ing a riv­et­ing sec­ond day of crick­et in the first Test in Bar­ba­dos on Thurs­day that fea­tured sev­er­al con­tentious um­pir­ing de­ci­sions.

West In­dies, re­sum­ing on their overnight to­tal of 57 for four, were even­tu­al­ly dis­missed for 190, giv­ing them a slen­der first in­nings lead of 10 runs.

Aus­tralia then found them­selves pre­car­i­ous­ly placed at 65 for four at one stage, but Beau Web­ster and Travis Head nav­i­gat­ed the re­main­ing min­utes safe­ly to see them fin­ish on 92 for four, to set up an in­trigu­ing third day of play.

The home side would have been hop­ing for a handy first in­nings lead with the set Bran­don King and cap­tain Ros­ton Chase at the crease to start the day.

But King on­ly added three runs to his overnight to­tal of 23 be­fore he shoul­dered arms to an in­swinger from Josh Ha­zle­wood and was bowled to make the score 72 for five.

His dis­missal brought Shai Hope to the crease and he wast­ed lit­tle time in dri­ving Mitchell Starc ex­quis­ite­ly through the cov­ers for four and fol­lowed it up with a daz­zling straight dri­ve.

Chase on the oth­er hand was more de­fen­sive, opt­ing to work the bowlers around the ground and pick up his runs with twos and sin­gles.

They looked on course to take the mo­men­tum away from Aus­tralia dur­ing a 67-run part­ner­ship that took the score up to 139 for five.

How­ev­er, the first of two ques­tion­able de­ci­sions by the third um­pire broke the stand, af­ter Chase was wrapped on the pad by Pat Cum­mins and giv­en out, but im­me­di­ate­ly re­viewed.

And even though the re­play showed that the ball changed di­rec­tion be­fore hit­ting his pad, in­di­cat­ing an in­side edge, the orig­i­nal de­ci­sion was up­held to see Chase dis­missed for 44.

Justin Greaves didn’t last long, scor­ing just four be­fore edg­ing be­hind to the keep­er, be­fore an­oth­er con­tentious de­ci­sion went Aus­tralia’s way.

Shai Hope had bat­ted bril­liant­ly for his 48 be­fore he was un­done by a sharp in­swinger from Web­ster that took the in­side edge of his bat on the way through to a div­ing wick­et­keep­er Alex Carey, who took a stun­ning catch div­ing to his left.

The catch was re­viewed for a clean take, and even though the re­play showed that the ball touched the ground while in Carey’s gloves, Hope was still sent pack­ing.

Alzarri Joseph added valu­able runs in an un­beat­en 23 from 20 balls, as the West In­dies’ last two wick­ets added 28 cru­cial runs to give them a slight lead.

Starc led the way with 3-65, while Web­ster (2-20), Cum­mins (2-34) and Josh Ha­zle­wood (2-41), pro­vid­ed good sup­port.

With the match in the bal­ance, Aus­tralia’s open­er Sam Kon­stas was giv­en two life­lines in the sec­ond in­nings, with Shamar Joseph be­ing the un­lucky bowler once again.

His part­ner Us­man Khawa­ja had no such luck and was un­done by an in­swinger from Alzarri Joseph that trapped him plumb in front and Kon­stas fol­lowed soon af­ter, play­ing on a de­liv­ery from Shamar Joseph to see the Aussies slip to 34 for two.

Jay­den Seales then com­pre­hen­sive­ly bowled Josh In­glis as he left a ball that nipped back in from out­side off stump and when Cameron Green was caught by Chase at first slip off the bowl­ing of Justin Greaves, Aus­tralia was in re­al trou­ble of col­laps­ing.

But Web­ster, who fin­ished un­beat­en on 19 and Head, who is 13 not out, en­sured there would be no fur­ther loss­es to leave the game per­fect­ly in the bal­ance.

Brief scores

AUS­TRALIA 180 & 92-4 in 33 overs (Beau Web­ster 22 not out, Cameron Green 15, Us­man Khawa­ja 15, Travis Head 13 not out, Josh In­glis 12).

WEST IN­DIES 190 in 63.2 overs (Shai Hope 48, Ros­ton Chase 44, Bran­don King 26, Alzarri Joseph 23 not out, Kea­cy Car­ty 20; Mitchell Starc 3-65, Beau Web­ster 2-20, Pat Cum­mins 2-34, Josh Ha­zle­wood 2-41).

CMC


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