Shamar Joseph’s role in stubborn 10th-wicket stand carries faint echoes of Tino Best
Alan Gardner20-Jul-2024Now let’s hear from our fictional correspondent, T. Wayne Mark, at Trent Bridge: “Reports of the death of West Indies cricket have been exaggerated – again!” Not that they aren’t still up against it after three days of the second Test. And we won’t get into the structural inequalities that mean they are required to regularly serve up miracles in order to quieten the noise around their continued viability as a Test nation.Those facts can’t be overlooked, but nor should another display of guts and grit that has helped keep this contest in the balance going into the fourth day. True, Kraigg Brathwaite’s side are perhaps not the likelier winners, with the expectation that they will be asked to pull off a record chase on this ground. There’s an element of regret, too, given the errors on day one that prevented them from bowling England out for a score in the region of 300-350, and how that might have tipped the scales.It is also the case that (spoiler alert) a mention for Tino la Bertram Best, the fast-living former fast bowler whose charisma outshone his record during a colourful international career that came to an end a decade ago, does not evoke the halcyon days of West Indian Test dominance on these shores in the way that some other names might. But bear with me.Related
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That West Indies were able to build on the fine platform provided by Kavem Hodge’s maiden Test hundred and overhaul England’s first-innings total to post 457 – their highest score overseas since Dunedin 2013, and the biggest in England since The Oval 1995 – ultimately came down to a brazen counter from Joshua Da Silva and last man Shamar Joseph that had the crowd ducking for cover and Ben Stokes scratching his head.Their stand of 71 off 78 balls included one almighty Shamar pull that smashed into the tiles on the roof of the Larwood & Voce bar and sent debris raining down on the crowd seated below. “He’s going to have to pay for that,” Da Silva joked afterwards.It was West Indies’ second-highest tenth-wicket stand in Tests against England, although some way off claiming top spot – the 143 added by Best and Denesh Ramdin at Edgbaston in 2012. Best memorably made 95 in that match, at the time the highest score by a No. 11. It was also, spookily enough, the last occasion before this one that England went into a home Test without either James Anderson or Stuart Broad in their XI.Da Silva, for his part, was thinking of another recent encounter: the deciding Test of England’s 2022 tour, when his maiden hundred turned the screw on a beleaguered opposition. “It was pretty much what I expected,” he said of England’s tactic of spreading the field for him, seemingly only focused on getting Joseph out. “The same that happened in Grenada, so I was just trying to replicate the innings I played there.”Joshua Da Silva and Shamar Joseph added valuable runs for the tenth wicket•AFP/Getty ImagesThere’s nothing like tail-end humpty to scatter the pigeons and get the beans going, and Joseph lived up to his billing as an agent of chaos. Momentum has ebbed and flowed in this Test but West Indies looked to be subsiding meekly after losing 4 for 31 in little more than an hour’s play on the third morning. Enter Joseph, with his megawatt grin and an Acme hammer straight out of a Warner Bros cartoon in place of a bat.Having seen off Chris Woakes’ hat-trick ball, he was soon demonstrating some of the shots that made his position at No. 11 in the order – below Jayden Seales, who was bowled through the gate by Woakes first ball – seem an anomaly. A jaunty 36 off 41 on debut in Adelaide six months ago was precursor to his heroics with the ball in that series and, while we have so far not seen the best of his bowling in England, this was another slice of brawling brilliance from the boy from Baracara.Joseph clobbered 32 of his 33 runs in boundaries, with Gus Atkinson bearing the brunt. Two attempts to bounce the smaller man disappeared into the stands in the space of three balls: the first a flat smear into the Fox Road Stand that could have been hit by fellow Guyanese Roy Fredericks, followed by the exuberant hoy over deep backward square leg that left its mark on the roof.Here was another Tino echo, a “mind the windows” moment but with England as the punchline instead. As West Indies galloped into an unexpected lead, there was plenty to enjoy for those wearing maroon dotted around the ground, particularly a clutch of supporters in the lower tier of the Radcliffe Road Stand.”He was pretty confident but I still had to shield him because he’s still No. 11,” Da Silva said. “He backs himself with the bat, he played some terrific shots, he broke a couple of tiles, which was good to see. But at the end of the day, it was my job to try and get the team as far as we can.”Shamar Joseph swung at will from No. 11•Getty ImagesWoakes, while conceding that the partnership had got away from them, said that England were content with the eventual outcome after West Indies had resumed on 351 for 5.”Once a field goes out, as a bowler, it’s easy to not try and get [the set batter] out and try and think of the No. 11,” he said. “But at the same time, you don’t just want to give away easy boundaries, and I think particularly here at Trent Bridge it is easy to leak boundaries, especially when a guy is in and the field’s up. So that was in our mindset, and also you don’t probably always expect the No. 11 to hit a couple into the stands either.”Fair play to them, I thought they played it pretty well. [But] I think we committed to it for long enough and eventually got the reward.”With Zak Crawley then run out while backing up in unfortunate circumstances at the start of England’s second innings, there was a frisson of tension around the ground. And while the hosts wrested the momentum back during the afternoon, West Indies bowled better to containing fields after tea, another ball change helping Alzarri Joseph to dislodge both set batters. England may yet close the door on them, as an unbroken stand late in the day between Joe Root and Harry Brook took the lead past 200 – but we’ve surely all learned not to write off West Indies just yet.