West Indies chase down Australia’s meagre total with overs to spare

Under-strength with the bat and unbalanced with the ball, Australia squandered a lower order revival on a tinder dry Barbados surface to allow the West Indies to level the ODI series with a four-wicket victory.

Adam Zampa and Wes Agar allowed the tourists to wriggle their way to a defendable 187 at Kensington Oval. But after early incisions by Mitchell Starc, Zampa was left without enough spin bowling support as Jason Holder (52) and Nicholas Pooran (59 not out) guided the West Indians home with no fewer than 12 overs to spare.

Ben McDermott was added to an injury list that has also featured Aaron Finch and Ashton Agar when he hurt his right ankle while trying to leap to catch a Jason Holder six off the expensive debutant Riley Meredith.

Emerging from two days of strict hotel isolation after a positive COVID-19 case among the West Indian team’s support staff, the tourists were shorn of Josh Hazlewood due to his management of a calf complaint.

Minus Finch, in addition to the absent David Warner, Steven Smith, Glenn Maxwell and Marnus Labuschagne, the top order fretted and fizzled to 6-45 in the face of some sharp turn extracted by the left-arm spinner Akeal Hossain.

But the lower order rallied staunchly enough to tally 187 through the efforts of Matthew Wade (36), Starc (19), Zampa (36) and, most strikingly, Wes Agar. His 41 runs from just 36 balls were a shot of adrenaline to the innings and the match, recalling the heroics of older brother Ashton Agar at Trent Bridge in 2013, where he cuffed an unforgettable 98 from No. 11 in the company of the late Phillip Hughes.

Starc (3-26) then knocked the top off the West Indian reply with real speed and late swing, providing openings for Zampa (2-43) to capitalise upon with his wrong’uns. Turner, bowling for the first time ever in ODIs after a long and painful history of shoulder problems, nipped out Shai Hope with his second ball.

However the lack of another spin bowling option hurt the Australians as Holder and Pooran formed the defining stand of the match. Other than Starc, the pacemen were harshly dealt with – claiming 0-79 from 13 overs between them – while the spin bowling backups Mitchell Swepson and Tanveer Sangha ran drinks. Ashton Agar has been recovering from a hamstring strain.

The match itself had a notional running time of three days, after it was dramatically postponed minutes before the start of play on Friday morning AEST due to the emergence of the positive COVID-19 case.

That revelation had both sides in strict hotel isolation for the better part of two days while the situation was clarified, and left the Australians – with the agreement of the hosts – to replace Hazlewood with Wes Agar.

None of McDermott, Josh Philippe or Mitchell Marsh could do much at the top, leaving Moises Henriques to be pouched at slip and then the acting captain Alex Carey and Turner to both be spun out by perfectly pitched offerings from Hossain. The three West Indian spin bowlers would go on to return combined figures of 4-72 from 24 overs.

At that point Australia’s lowest ODI total in the Caribbean, 149 in Trinidad in 1995, looked a long way off. But Wade and Starc repaired things somewhat by adding 51 before Zampa and Agar chimed in with a puckish stand worth 59 in 53 balls.

Starc has been much too good for Evin Lewis so far in the series, this time pinning him lbw after threatening to take the outside edge. More memorable was the late away swinger that plucked out Darren Bravo’s off stump second ball, unleashing a roar of jubilation from Starc as he exhorted teammates towards victory.

While Starc’s fellow pacemen struggled with the vagaries of the surface, Zampa put in a spell befitting Australia’s No. 1 spin bowler with the white ball, including a googly of the highest quality to flummox Kieron Pollard. Turner’s appearance at the other end, to slide a ball past Hope’s outside edge and into off stump, seemingly gave Australia the balance they needed.

But Turner bowled just two overs until West Indies needed only 35 more runs to win, as none of Meredith, Wes Agar or Marsh posed much wicket-taking threat. The last genuine chance for an Australian win arrived at 5-123 when Pooran mistimed another Zampa googly, only for Henriques to shell the simple chance at mid off.

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