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32nd over: Australia 94-3 (Khawaja 41, Head 14) Kemar Roach returns. The big 35-year-old is into the 80th Test of his esteemed career. He has 265 wickets at 27.8 placing him fifth in the all-time wicket-takers list for the West Indies, ahead of Joel Garner but behind the holy trinity of Courney Walsh (519), Curtley Ambrose (405) and Malcolm Marshall (376). He bowls a maiden here.
31st over: Australia 94-3 (Khawaja 41, Head 14) Justin Pierre Greaves’ first ball in Test cricket is a beauty. It’s only 120kph but it rises sharply on Khawaja and he flinches but drops it at his feet. Good start for the 29-year-old allrounder from Barbados. He floats the next few wide. Khawaja takes him for one but Head wants a closer look at the rookie before he starts flaying him. Just one from the over. Welcome to Test cricket, Mr Greaves.
30th over: Australia 93-3 (Khawaja 40, Head 14) BANG goes Head! New bowler kemar Roach floated in a tame half-volley and Head thrashed it through covers for his first boundary of the day. Good comeback though as Roach draws a wild slash that inside edges just shy of the stumps. Head gets the final world, whipping the final delivery square for another four. Travis Head is away!
29th over: Australia 85-3 (Khawaja 40, Head 6) Head cuts Alzarri Joseph’s first ball fine and gets two. The West Indies bowlers have their tail up after the early wicket of Cameron Green and are challenging the batters with good balls on a length and tempting traps wide of the stumps. It’s smart bowling. And credit goes to their bowling coach Shaun Tait, the former Australian quick from Nairne, South Australia once known the world over as “The Wild Thing”.
28th over: Australia 82-3 (Khawaja 40, Head 3) Almost an edge! Khawaja had a big swish at Shamar Joseph’s first ball and the bowler threw his head back in disbelief. Khawaja taps a run through covers and Head returns the dose, running a ball to long leg. Khawaja swings hard at the final delivery, heaving it into the deep but short of the rope. He gets another two.
27th over: Australia 78-3 (Khawaja 37, Head 2) Australia trail by 111 as Alzarri Joseph enters his 11th over with Usman Khawaja facing the music. He hops to meet a ball on the rise and backhands it fine to scamper a run. Head chases a ball on the same trajectory drawing a noise but no run. Joseph bangs the next one in short but Head resists the temptation to swat it square. Joseph tries it again – he must’ve seen the multiplicity of clips of Head falling to the short ball – but the batter veers away again.
26th over: Australia 77-3 (Khawaja 36, Head 2) Travis Head now gets his first look at Shamar Joseph. Although he hasn’t had much of a summer so far hius reciord against the West Indies is epic – four Tests, 312 runs at an average of 156 at a strike-rate of 90.4. What plans have the visitors formulated? Joseph tests him with a short ball then goes full before Head winds up a big pull shot that only yields a single. Khawaja clips wide of mid-on to hang onto the strike.
25th over: Australia 75-3 (Khawaja 35, Head 1) Head taps his sixth ball through covers to get off the mark. Khawaja now springs into life, springing onto his toes to viciously pull Alzarri Joseph to the boundary wide of mid-on. His strike rate might be under 48 but that’s Khawaja’s fifth four. Of course he should’ve been out caught by keeper Da Silva yesterday when he was just 6.
24th over: Australia 69-3 (Khawaja 31, Head 0) Shamar Joseph enters his eighth over with Australia trailing by 119 runs. Khawaja is content to let the first length balls two pass. He tries to get bat on the legside ball that follows but can’t. Joseph is slinging them down in the high 130s. He’s not a tall man – more Malcolm Marshall than Joel Garner – but his feats in this Test will make sure he’s forever a big man in his home town of Baracara, Guyana (pop 350).
23rd over: Australia 69-3 (Khawaja 31, Head 0) Here comes Alzarri Joseph again and his first ball beats Khawaja. Finally, on the fourth, Uzzy runs a single to notch his first runs of the day. Khawaja has a good record at the Adelaide Oval – 392 runs at 48 – and with an attacking batter at the other end to keep the runs flowing, he can settle into his sheet anchor role.
WICKET! Green c Da Silva b S Joseph (Australia 67-3)The dream debut continues for Shamar Joseph! He responds to Green spanking him for consecutive boundaries with a ball that moves through the air and forces Green into a defensive stroke. But it pops up and moves enough to catch feathered edge from the big allrounder. Joseph has 3-27 and Green is gorn!
22nd over: Australia 67-2 (Khawaja 30, Green 14) Here’s the man of the moment and the other Joseph in this West Indies attack, Shamar Joseph. Green plays out a couple of dots before making a statement: a cracking boundary through backward point and a powerful flick through midwicket…
22nd over: Australia 59-2 (Khawaja 30, Green 6) Here we go, folks. It will be Alzarri Joseph bowling to Usman Khawaja. It’s a cloudy day in Adelaide and so cool a few of the West Indies players have called for jumpers. Joseph’s six balls, all delivered above 130kph. can’t get the blood pumping either. Khawaja plays out a maiden.
Joseph’s wonderful performance on debut stole some of the shine from Australia’s Josh Hazlewood hitting 250 Test wickets although I doubt the ever-humble NSW quick would begrudge being shaded by a young quick on the rise.
The Bendemeer Bullet’s four-wicket blitz – at one stage Hazlewood had 4-14 before Joseph’s late hitting battered his figures to 4-44 – gave Australia the only one team in Test history to boast an attack featuring four bowlers with more than 250 wickets each. Extraordinary.
Shamar Joseph shook the world yesterday. His 36 off 41 balls was the highest ever score by a West Indies No 11 on debut and equalled the international record set by English No 11 Norman Cowans in 1982. Joseph then took a wicket with his first ball in Test cricket – just the 23rd man in the history of the game to achieve the feat.
“Getting Steve Smith, I’ll remember this for the rest of my life,” the 24-year-old quick said after stumps. “I will actually take a picture and take it home and post it in my house.”
Joseph’s modesty belied a clever plan devised for the Australian ace. “I’ve watched a few Test matches of Steve Smith, and I think that area is a weakness for him,” Joseph said. “I just said ‘I’ll hit the top of off’ because he’s a batsman that treads across a lot. He tries to take you off your line, so I stick to the basics and try to hit the top of off with some late movement away and got the edge. I was tense, bowling to Steve Smith isn’t easy.”
Joseph said he had a premonition he would achieve the extraordinary. “I had a few conversations with the boys in the dressing room, and I told them I would get a wicket with my first ball!” he laughed.
For those who came in late, here’s how Day One played out…
PreambleMorning all, and welcome back to Adelaide Oval for day two of the Guardian’s over-by-over coverage of this first Test between Australia and West Indies for the Frank Worrell Trophy. Angus Fontaine here to navigate the early sessions for you with Geoff Lemon to bring you home.
Day one was wonderful – full of skill, courage and drama.
Pat Cummins became the first captain in 44 years to win the toss in Adelaide and bowl first. The decision paid off with Cummins (4-41) and Josh Hazlewood (4-44) ripping through the West Indies for 188, but only after a fiercely entertaining last-wicket partnership between debutant No 11 Shamar Joseph (36) and No 10 Kemar Roach (17*). Their 55-run last stand delivered a riproaring riposte to Australia’s famed bowling cartel and injected vivid life into this Test.
Joseph then stole all the headlines – and hearts – when his first ball in Test cricket dismissed Australia’s new opening batsman Steve Smith for 12. He later claimed the wicket of No 3 Marnus Labuschagne to strike another blow for the visitors and send the world’s No 1 side staggering to stumps at 59-2.
It capped an extraordinary rise for the 24-year-old quick, who grew up in the tiny village of Baracara on the banks of the remote Canje River. A year ago, Joseph had abandoned his cricket career to work as a bouncer and logger in support of his wife and two children and his five sisters and three brothers back home. But in February 2023 he rekindled the dream, and nine games into his first-class career, he is now a Test player.
Joseph (2-12) has the opportunity to further bedazzle his Cinderella story this morning when he attempts to uproot overnight batters Usman Khawaja (30* but dropped on 6) and Cameron Green (6*). Under cloudy Adelaide skies, on a wicket with plenty of surprises and with a local hero in Travis Head padded up to come in next, it’s going to be fun, fun, fun.