A milestone-heavy day for Australia’s batters further underlined the home side’s dominance against a struggling West Indies outfit
Marnus Labuschagne’s third hundred in as many innings and Travis Head’s first at his home ground have powered Australia into another dominant position in their return to day-night cricket.
Despite the supposedly supernatural powers of the pink ball under floodlights, the pair piled on 141 without a blemish in the night session after coming together with the innings in the balance at 3-131 midway through the day.
Australia’s day one total of 3-330 means the long-suffering West Indies bowlers have claimed 9-1,110 during one Test and a day in the field of this NRMA Insurance Series, at an average of 123 runs per breakthrough.
Labuschagne became just the second player to twice score centuries in three consecutive Test innings, joining current teammate David Warner who achieved the feat in 2014 and 2015.
Only one Australia batter has managed tons in four consecutive Test knocks, and the form Labuschagne is currently riding means he’s every chance of equalling Jack Fingleton’s 1936 benchmark next time he bats.
And even former West Indies’ great Everton Weekes’s five hundreds on the bounce in 1948-49 might come under threat.
Head had squandered a priceless opportunity to post his first hundred at Perth Stadium last week when, having cruised to 99 from 94 balls, he chopped on to his stumps moments before Australia’s first innings was declared closed.
But the 28-year-old didn’t let another chance slip, delighting the hundreds of fans who vacated their places in the party tents behind the members stand as he pushed into the nineties, and roared in celebration as the South Australia skipper found the long-off boundary for his 10th boundary.
It was a fitting way to reach his fifth Test hundred – which he reached from a comparatively sedate 125 balls faced – given he scored around 75 per cent of his runs today through the off-side as the West Indies repeatedly fed his strength.
The only sour note from another brutally dominant Australia batting effort was stand-in skipper Steve Smith’s eight-ball duck, which came against the run of play and in defiance of logic.
Smith must surely have thought Christmas had arrived prematurely when he went to the crease in the 42nd over, with Australia 2-129 and the West Indies so bereft of options and ideas they deployed spinner Roston Chase (1-171 in Perth) before 10 overs were bowled on day one.
Furthermore, the visitors’ bowling stocks had been so sorely depleted before and during today’s opening session they had to call on debutant Devon Thomas – who began his first-class career 15 years ago as a wicketkeeper – to bowl during the day’s opening session.
But not only had Thomas snared a wicket in his fourth over as a Test bowler, the West Indies celebrated a double strike when Smith bunted a return catch which Jason Holder accepted at shin height.
The only people more incredulous than Smith and the 24,449 crowd – a record day one attendance for a West Indies fixture in Adelaide – at such an event were the fielding team who last dismissed the former Australia skipper five innings earlier, at Hobart in 2015.
Since that time Smith had helped himself to scores of 134no, 70no, 200no and 20no with today’s duck ensuring he can at least cite and average over that period, albeit a nonsensical 424.
But if the West Indies thought two wickets in as many overs signalled a profound shift in the series’ narrative they were roundly mistaken.
Even though Smith was removed as darkness fell, the pink ball worked no wonders against the broad bats of Australia’s in-form duo.
Labuschagne reached his third century in as many knocks this Test summer with a dismissive slash to the boundary over the slips after skipper Kraigg Brathwaite had brought fielders in hoping Australia’s number three might succumb to an overdue dose of nervous nineties.
Head then followed with his hundred an hour later, noting after play he had learned his lesson from Perth and played perfectly straight as he navigated the nineties.
Smith had noted upon winning the coin toss this afternoon that Australia’s plan was to bat big and drive the game from that point, although they effectively took control of the wheel within an hour of play beginning.
If they were unsettled by the loss of their skipper Pat Cummins (quad strain) on match eve, and strike bowler Josh Hazlewood (side strain) in the hours prior to the toss, it was undiscernible from the moment stand-in captain Smith sent his openers to the wicket.
David Warner quickly dined out on a diet of mostly gentle medium-pace bowling that was made to seem even more insipid by the pace at which the ball carried off the evenly grassed Adelaide surface.
While Alzarri Joseph tried to work up a head of steam from the River Torrens end, his new-ball partner Jason Holder’s difficulties began after just one delivery as he displayed considerable disquiet with his run-up from the scoreboard end.
It seemed Holder’s issue was the slight step-up between the surrounding turf and the start of the drop-in pitch, a discrepancy Australia quick Mitchell Starc had also noticed in the pre-game warm-up.
While the camber might have provided some mitigation for Holder’s average bowling speeds of barely 130kph, there was no such excuse for Joseph who was dispatched three times to the off-side boundary by Warner in a single over.
The left-hander’s most recent Test century came against New Zealand at the SCG in 2019-20, the same summer as he plundered an unbeaten 335 against a far more potent Pakistan attack armed with pink balls at Adelaide Oval.
But not for the first time this week, Warner caught everyone off-guard when – having raced to 21 with a brace of boundaries off Joseph – he chased a fuller ball that same bowler angled across him and presented keeper Joshua da Silva with a straightforward offering.
The pair put together a second-wicket stand of 95, during which they were respectfully watchful as the West Indies tightened their attack and targeted the stumps but jumped on any loose balls that were duly dealt with.
It was scarcely a surprise given Khawaja boasted the highest average of any Australia opener in day-night Tests prior to today (54), and Labuschagne was fresh from scores of 204 and 104 not out in the NRMA Insurance Series opener in Perth last week.
What wasn’t foreseen was Khawaja losing his wicket to West Indies debutant Thomas, called up because of the raft of injuries the visitors have copped since the series began and called upon as fifth change bowler prior to the day’s first interval such was the lack of penetration from the first six.
Gaining some appreciable swing as dusk began to settle, even though the pink ball was more than 40 overs old by that stage, Thomas pushed a delivery from around the wicket past Khawaja’s inside edge which umpire Rod Tucker adjudged to be hitting the stumps.
Khawaja’s belief it would have slid past leg stump had it not thumped into his pad saw him review the verdict immediately without consulting his batting partner, and even though the ball pitched outside off and would have only brushed the wicket it was upheld as umpire’s call.
Earlier in his innings, Khawaja had crowned his remarkable 2022 by passing 1000 runs in Tests, the first Australian to reach that milestone since Labuschagne in 2019.
It was therefore a moment of triumph for 33-year-old Thomas who was included for his maiden Test as one of four injury replacements for the ravaged West Indies and, as a top-order batter who kept wickets early in his career, boasted just 20 first-class wickets in more than 100 matches.
It was a rare highlight for a clearly undermanned and underperforming bowling unit, which lost spearhead Kemar Roach, young quick Jayden Seales and all-rounder Kyle Mayers to injury after Perth.
Such was the shortfall of players, when another debutant – right-arm seamer Marquino Mindley – was forced from the field after bowling two overs today, the tourists had to deploy Seales as a substitute fielder even though he’s hurt because emergency sub-fielder Omar Phillips had not arrived in Adelaide.
Phillips, who played the only two Tests of his career against Bangladesh 13 years ago, was summoned from Melbourne where he is playing in sub-district competition.
Mindley’s tale stands as something of a thumbnail sketch of the West Indies’ entire campaign.
Having travelled 16,000 kilometres from Jamaica to Adelaide where he arrived on Tuesday in time for his team’s sole pre-Test training run, Mindley bowled two overs (including three no-balls) and conceded 11 runs before limping from the field inside the opening hour.
He was then sent for scans on a sore hamstring, and was absent for the remainder of the day and his involvement in the rest of the Test – and therefore the entire tour – is in doubt. (Cric.com.au)