West Indies v Australia First Test, Day Two Report Card

Featuring cats and mice, deserving a break, Morpheus off the long run, and more cats and mice

Cats and Mice
Grade: D

It’s a real game of cat and mouse, isn’t it? No, not the cricket, the working out which session to watch from back here in Australia.

For the second day I went with the first session, reasoning that my best chance to see a lot of action was with the Australian quicks, still with a newish ball in hand, potentially tearing through the West Indies middle and lower order.

Frankly, it was a struggle to even get to the first ball. For I’m old and midnight is late. Why are we playing after midnight, anyway? What if some of the players are Mogwai? What horrors would the ‘lunch’ break offer? Let’s think about this.

Anyway, as it turned out, only one wicket fell in that first session, undoing all my plans, as Roston Chase and Shai Hope put on an unbroken 63 run partnership. (Related: As mantras by which to live your life go, you could do a lot worse than ‘Chase Hope’.)

In fact, the most notable factor from that first session was learning that not only can the Australian bowlers not trust their batters to score enough runs, they can’t trust them to take catches either, with a couple of chances going down.

A slips cordon of Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood, Nathan Lyon (minus whoever’s bowling) is only a matter of time.

Deserving A Break
Grade: B+

Lunch was my signal to go to bed. I didn’t need to see a scrum of chaotic gremlins playing cricket. I’ve seen it before (1983 through 1987) and it’s not a pretty sight, no matter how comical and cruel their antics.

Obviously, I then missed Australia fighting back immediately after the break with the ball, the bowlers straining with all their might, dislodging the last five West Indies batters for just 55 further runs, conceding a mere 10-run lead.

Good work from the attack, who must have made their way back to the dressing room, exhausted, yet content with their work. Time to relax, have a bit of a massage and see what kind of lead the batters could bu—

Oh, FFS.

Morpheus Off The Long Run

Here’s a limerick to summarise what happened.