Oz tour of WI, June 25 - July 29

[Gingerfinch]

Is 27 the lowest ever test score?

[bigfluffylemon]

That was crazy. Second lowest test score. 7 ducks, one score in double figures (and six extras).

[mikesiva]

New Zealand 26 all out in 1955.

Lowest ever Windies score.

West Indies 27 all out

Greaves 11

Starc 6-9!!
Boland 3-2!!

[backfootpunch]

Just when you think the windies batting couldn't sink any lower

[bigfluffylemon]

Pitch has to have played some role. It's the lowest aggregate in a match with four all-out innings since 1910 when pitches were uncovered - and the Windies' lowest aggregate ever in a match where they had two all-out innings (and the next lowest had a batter absent hurt so only 18 wickets fell).

Got to wonder about the future of pink ball tests. Australia do well out of them, but hardly anyone else does. They tend to be very one sided, and heavily favour the home team (only five of the 25 played so far have been won by the away side, and only one of the 15 played since 2018 has had a margin of less than 200 runs, an innings, or 8 wickets.

Of course that one exception was the West Indies heist at the Gabba in 2024, which was one of if not the best match of the year. But in general they don't produce great games).

[GarlicJam]

I agree on the whole, Fluffy, but the pink ball cannot be blamed for the debacle that was the Windies' second innings. At least not the pink ball under lights.
All of these wickets can be put down to very good bowling, and the batters not handling this very good bowling.

Starc was superb.

[sussexpob]

I agree on the whole, Fluffy, but the pink ball cannot be blamed for the debacle that was the Windies' second innings. At least not the pink ball under lights.
All of these wickets can be put down to very good bowling, and the batters not handling this very good bowling. Starc was superb.

The first wicket hits Campbell's outside edge playing way outside off stump to a ball that pitches probably 8 meters down the track on a off, maybe off-middle line. The second wicket the ball at halfway is outside off stump, swings late to bring it inside the line of off stump, and comes back enough to hit middle stump flush on the nose. The third is an almost carbon copy but the batsman got some inside edge onto it and drags it on. The fourth wicket the ball is heading well away from the stumps past halfway, swings back a long way very late, and beats the batsman playing an off stump line on his inside edge.

Its been well noted with people who have bowled or tested the Duke's pink ball that the smoother surface and additional layer of lacquer coating produces extreme movement when new. The only other test this ball was used in also resulted in a sub-100 innings. I think this is a case of good bowling being turned into something generationally unplayable by the ball personally. When it stopped moving all over the shop, WIndies were already 6-7 down and their tailenders batted hopelessly.

[sussexpob]

In general, I guess the Windies batsman will cop all the blame for the 3-0 loss, and for good reason. Nevertheless, you can't really expect to produce talented players with solid technique playing on these types of pitches, in each test you could generally setup perfectly and when the ball comes with your name on it, you are done. Pitches have to reward batsman who bat well, not condemn them to the whims of uneven bounce that takes all the skill out of it. It also means your batsman don't have opportunity to learn to build big innings, they just get into the mindset of "score as many as I can". I guess in this way its become the complete opposite of the 2000s/early 2010s, when pitches become sub-continental and flat as hell... and Windies had some good bats, but couldn't buy a decent bowler.

The pitches have to get more even for both disciplines in the domestic game. There are many things outside the control of the West Indies game that impacts its ability to compete at the highest level, the skill drain to T20 franchises is an obvious blow to their international teams.... but you can control pitches, and you should be able to make pitches that reward good batting.

[GarlicJam]

The first wicket hits Campbell's outside edge playing way outside off stump to a ball that pitches probably 8 meters down the track on a off, maybe off-middle line. The second wicket the ball at halfway is outside off stump, swings late to bring it inside the line of off stump, and comes back enough to hit middle stump flush on the nose. The third is an almost carbon copy but the batsman got some inside edge onto it and drags it on. The fourth wicket the ball is heading well away from the stumps past halfway, swings back a long way very late, and beats the batsman playing an off stump line on his inside edge.

Well fancy that, Starc swung the ball well, and put the ball in great areas in the first over. That is his greatest weapon, he has been doing it all his career.

He did very well, batsmen did not do so well.

Starc has been doing it with the red ball, with the white ball, with the pink ball.

And, you exaggerate here anyway.

[sussexpob]

And, you exaggerate here anyway.

I dont really need to exaggerate, because we can make a fairly accurate guess as to how much the ball has moved using the reference pitches on the pitch + a bit of trigonometry to work out the angle of movement. Take the first ball in the innings...



At the release point of the ball, the ball is just outside the pitch marking for the protected zone. We know that this marking is 30.5cm/1 foot from the centre of the wicket, and the wicket itself it 22.8cm wide. The distance from centre of the wicket to the outside of offstump is 11,4cms, and therefore the gap between off and the marker 19,1cm.



The ball just before pitching. Its hitting in line with off-stump. Even taking the most conservative measure on the pitch of the ball to be hitting the very outside mm of the stump, and assuming the length is about 6 meters (the accuracy of the length is unimportant in the calculation for reasons I wont explain), that gives an angle of 0.9 degrees. If this ball holds its line, it will travel 9,4 cms laterally, so my originally assessment that it was hitting off/off-middle is actually an understatement - it going to hit middle stump.



Finally the edge. The ball as it passes the bat is now once again almost level with the protected zone marker. We can at this stage get fussy about the measurements, but Campbell's backfoot is on the crease line almost perfectly (1.22 m from the wicket) front foot down the pitch. The point of interception is probably somewhere near the 2 meter mark from the wicket, but let's stick to the assumption that if the ball has moved almost the full 19.1 cms from the crease mark to the off stump in roughly 4 meters, over 6 meters it will definitely move laterally to that point. Its moved laterally roughly 4,77cms per meter, so such an assumption would be very conservative.

Angle of movement = 2.9 degrees. Taking account for the original path of the ball, you add these two figures together and the ball has seamed about 3.8 degrees in total, at a very conservative guess, and about 5 degrees at a high end estimate.

Starc has been doing it with the red ball, with the white ball, with the pink ball.

Shane Warne's average leg spinner turned 3.97 degrees.

The highest average turning pitch in India since 2014 had 4.1 degrees of turn.

Even taking the most conservative estimate, that ball moved off the pitch give or take a fraction of a cm here and there, like the average leg break from the biggest turning spinner ever measured. I don't think you can say that is normal or Starc does it all the time.

I know this, because the average seam movement for Aussie seamers at home is 0.55 degrees in recent times. Its simply nowhere near what he usually does.

[andy]

Australia win the first t20

[mikesiva]

Australia won the T20s series 5-0....

[sussexpob]

Windies struggles wont resolve themselves if they continue to drain players to the professional T20 circuit. Nicholas Pooran rather waste his time in crap tournaments in the USA than turn up to play for the Windies, which is depressing. And Sunil Narine hasn't played in 5-6 years, also preferring to play anywhere but in the national team for money. I hope its not true, but Evin Lewis' absence in this series is also a concern, he was not injured and scored runs in his last series, so does this mean that he is now turning his back on the team like Pooran? The annoying thing is, these players make a name for themselves from international cricket, but couldn't care less about the team once the money offers come in. I guess I can understand it on a human level to some extent, but its depressing for the game.

I guess also that the players arent playing for their country as such, so might view the national team as not really being something they have to be blindly loyal to. There was suggesting in the past, although they have seemingly disappeared, that the future would be each island playing for themselves..... I Can't really see how that will help though, as if the combined XI can't perform anywhere near standards, then Jamaica or everyone else stand no chance alone.

It would ne nice at some stage if the Windies could finally actually get their act together. I mean that off the field mostly - the board is clearly an issue, and has been going back to the early 2000s. Many players have pointed out contracting issues, treatment issues, corruption or professionalism at the board. Simple things like pitches being of standard are even a problem, we either seem to have got roads or pitches that do far too much.

You can't develop talent on these pitches, its a lottery.