After bowling the West Indies out for 311 in their first innings midway through the opening session of the day-night Test, Australia staged a lower innings recovery, allowing captain Pat Cummins to declare at 289-9 late in the night session. That decision paid off with the late dismissal of Tagenarine Chanderpaul. The Australians had got away to a disastrous start to their first innings and were reduced to 24 for 4 and 54 for 5. They were rescued by a counterattacking innings from wicketkeeper Alex Carey, who smashed 65 from just 49 balls.
Carey would have been dismissed early but he was lucky enough to survive a close chance and lift his team out of the hot water.
On the second ball of the 15th over, when Australia were reeling at 72 for 5, a short of length delivery from Shamar Joseph brushed past the bail of the off stump. It was a 141.7 kmph delivery but Carey was lucky that the bail didn’t go off and as a result he managed to survive.
Watch it here:
The bail spun in its groove – but didn’t fall! #AUSvWI pic.twitter.com/t6XgOibdqr
— cricket.com.au (@cricketcomau) January 26, 2024
Carey launched a blazing counterattack, racing to 50 runs off just 38 balls. He and Khawaja put on 96 runs in quick time before Carey, on 65, tried one big shot too many, mistiming a pull shot straight to Chanderpaul at deep fine leg.
When Carey was dismissed with the score on 150, the Australians were still 161 runs behind and the West Indies looked certain to take a big lead into the second innings.
But Cummins had other ideas and he and Usman Khawaja (75) took Australia to 242 before the opener edged to first slip to become off-spinner Kevin Sinclair‘s first Test wicket.
The dismissal sparked a spectacular celebration from Sinclair that included a sprint to cover followed by a round-off and back somersault.
Khawaja’s wicket was the signal for Cummins to go even further on the attack and he raced to his highest Test score of 64 in an innings that combined regulation cricket shots with agricultural swipes.
When Nathan Lyon edged Alzarri Joseph to wicketkeeper Joshua Da Silva to become the ninth wicket down, Cummins had had enough and declared to allow his bowlers 35 minutes under lights at the West Indians.
Australia then took the late wicket of Chanderpaul to even the contest after a fascinating second day’s play in the second Test against the West Indies in Brisbane on Friday.
At stumps, the West Indies were 13-1, a lead of 35 runs, after Chanderpaul was given out on review for the faintest of edges off Josh Hazlewood in the last over of the night.
(With AFP Inputs)
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