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All may not be lost yet for Caribbean Cricket. There are more experienced players who have let the team down, especially with the bat, in the series so far, but it’s the two newcomers that have offered some of the silver lining.
Alec Athanaz of Dominica and Kirk McKenzie of Trinidad – two debutantes who have shown a better understanding of what is required to take on the Indian bowling. Some other West Indians have vacillated between dead defense and mindless aggression—one or two seem out of their depth—but Athanaze and McKenzie seem familiar with the combination needed to thrive.
The hosts never bothered with a scoring average on Saturday, with survival being the name of the game. At tea they were 174/3, still 264 behind India’s first innings score of 438. But at least, they were toiling the tourists after a fairly easy outing at Windsor Park.
On the third day in Port of Spain, the West Indies resumed with the rare luxury of a fine opening wing. Kraigg Brathwaite (75 off 235 balls) and McKenzie looked largely untroubled, the upstart always looking for scoring opportunities, while his skipper lived up to his reputation of being a huge client. It was a bit of a surprise when McKenzie clipped a ball from fellow debutant Mukesh Kumar that was neither wide nor short enough for the shot, and edged it past the back.
It was his first bat at this level and he only made 32 runs, but Mackenzie seemed better prepared to tackle the challenges of Test cricket than some of his more experienced teammates. Late on Friday, he showed little nerve in pumping Ravichandran Ashwin at halfway for a six, his first boundary in Test cricket.
In the 57 balls he has faced, the 22-year-old from Jamaica has shown himself to be skilful against the full and short ball and was not particularly bothered by his pace or spin. Most of the batsmen around him were cheated by Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja, but the youngster played the ball rather than the bowler.
Mackenzie was hit twice outside stump by Jaydev Unadkat in the first over of the third day, but showed an ability to put the former ball out of his mind, driving his left arm seamer straight on the last ball. He repeated the potion the next time Onadkat played, but this time his slow pitch couldn’t stop the ball from hitting the boundary. The next ball was smashed after halfway through to another four. When a left-arm attempt at a short ball didn’t get him up enough, McKenzie carelessly dragged it across midfield.
It was only Mukesh who bothered him a bit with his off-stump discipline, and it was one of those deliveries that proved to be his downfall.
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After the defeat in Dominica, captain Brathwaite blamed himself for not leading from the front. He was dismissed twice by Ashwin, as the team crumbled to 150 and 130. The hosts had a task at hand to restore some pride in Caribbean cricket after recent setbacks across the formats, and Brathwaite seemed determined to make up for that in Trinidad. On a pitch similar to many of India’s low and sluggish pitches, he intended to hold out eventually. There may have been some harsh words spoken in the home dressing room after the first Test, as the other batsmen seemed anxious to follow the captain’s lead, and avoided all hazards. Even the usually adventurous Jermaine Blackwood put his head down.
With not much help from the conditions, the Indian bowlers resorted to bowling at the stumps, with a canopy field close to the leg side. With almost every delivery, the batsmen had to be careful not to hit anything in the air.
Even in such unhelpful circumstances, Ashwin’s control and tact kept the batsmen honest. With an economical rate of less than two rounds, he not only kept the scoring rate in check, but also challenged his survival instincts with changes in flight, trajectory, line, and speed, making the odd turn. At the other end, Jadeja was his usual Scrooge self, running under.
Their subtlety and intransigence from the hosts meant that the game was not getting far ahead either way, although the third day was dubbed ‘action day’ in Test cricket. Only when Ashwin produced a pearl, drifting away through the air before landing on a rough patch and finding the gap between bat and pad to hit the stumps, did the match threaten to explode. The impeachment prompted Blackwood and Athanaz to get into their shells even more.
It says something about the strength deep within the Indian first-class construct that an honest tryr with a good record domestically, but not much in the way of speed or mobility in his arsenal, can do a job when called upon. And Mukesh was disciplined in line and length, and got just enough movement to keep the batsmen in check.
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