The first player out of the West Indian changing room is Shamar Joseph. He is still hobbling and is careful not to overstretch his right foot. A group of children sitting nearby scream out to him, “Shamar, Shamar, we want a picture.” His scowl quickly gives way to that gorgeous toothy smile. And he approaches them, striking a photo op before signing a few autographs.
Shamar is still going strong when his teammates soon begin to come out of the shed and invite him to join a loose huddle. He approaches Tagenarine Chanderpaul first and makes a joke in his ear about his toe. Before putting Kevin Sinclair, his fellow Guyanese national, in a friendly headlock and laughing with him
It had been a little more than thirty minutes since Shamar secured his sixth wicket during one of the most impressive fast bowling runs on Australian soil. In the sultry and muggy conditions at the Gabba, six wickets in ten overs. In his only Test match, he claimed six wickets in ten straight overs. Ten straight overs with six wickets at nearly broken foot.
However, he is not in any pain. He’s airborne. His greatest desire was to play cricket for a national team. His expectations are far above what is happening at the Gabba. He is not experiencing any emotions.
You come to understand that we are the ones experiencing a miracle. It seems like Shamar Joseph is living his greatest life right now. It’s evident from looking at the other players in the group that everyone else is as well. Captain Kraigg Brathwaite included. Even Kemar Roach during his fourth Australian tour. Even Alzarri Joseph, about whom you can never really get a good read in any case.
This team doesn’t appear to be on the verge of staging the biggest upset in Test cricket history, let alone one that is about to take on one of Australia’s cricketing strongholds. to become the first squad in history to defeat Australia in a pink-ball Test match. This group appears to be savoring the chance to play Test cricket. savoring the chance to be who they are and having the greatest time doing it.
You could not help but feel at that very moment that the West Indies were going to pull off something inconceivable. Australia still had Steve Smith out in the middle, but they needed 29 more runs. In the preceding half-year, they had also developed a routine of escaping these nerve-wracking situations unharmed. But not right now. Not against this resurgent West Indian side, who had taken the lead in this Test after that disastrous start in the first session. It was their time. It was their moment.
You were certain that the greatest amazing Test victory in history was going to be achieved by an extremely inexperienced side that had arrived in Australia with less to lose than any other team.
And so, in less than fifteen minutes, they did. And Shamar Joseph has to have taken the last wicket. Shamar Joseph had to have been the driving force behind the West Indians’ frantic dash around the Gabba, which culminated in front of their dressing room. Shamar Joseph had to be the one to close the last page on one of the greatest victories in sports history. One of the great tales in sport. one of the great tales in sport.
By then, he had already written himself into the record books as the young man from Baracara, the place he had left only a few years earlier with nothing but the dream of playing cricket on the grandest platform. Despite stumbling and limping on the boundary between overs, he miraculously managed to increase his pace with each over. Even in his seventh consecutive over, he recorded the quickest delivery of the summer at 149.6 kph.
Not to mention the other amazing aspects of his story as a whole. The way he had hobbled off the field the night before. The fact that on the fourth morning, he wasn’t even supposed to hit the ground. Only a few minutes before becoming a global sports legend, he was sitting half-naked, only wearing his boxer shorts, his shoes, and his maroon cap. The knowledge that he would hold onto the ball until he secured the final wicket, a promise he had made to his captain, whom he had just met face-to-face four weeks prior in Adelaide.The fact that, until this week, when he was playing jungle-land cricket in Baracara, the only object he’d ever bowled with that was a guava. This was the instance where the thin line separating the miraculous from the absurd was being crossed.
However, that could be said of several players on this team. Of course, Shamar was the ultimate superstar match winner. However, there had been more heroes appearing around every turn. Joshua Da Silva and Kavem Hodge’s collaboration in the opening innings. Before using the ball to break the vital partnership between Pat Cummins and Usman Khawaja later, Sinclair scored a half-century on his debut. Alick Athanaze, Kirk McKenzie, and Justin Greaves—all of whom are currently under four tests—all made key contributions in the second inning. Not to mention that, without Shamar, Greaves decisively defeated Marnus Labuschagne late in the third round.
And in due course, the other players who contributed to the biggest Test victory in West Indies history in Australia will also be recognized. Their tales will be told and repeated. Thus, they ought to.
However, Shamar is understandably the cricket world’s supreme cynosure for the time being. What is sometimes overlooked among the many amazing things about his performance is how skilled he was when it counted most.
Changing tactics and attacking the stumps with the soft pink ball, the young cricketer who had no formal training and only learned the meaning of fitness and training two years ago, outperformed every other fast bowler on a pitch where they had tried to nick off the batters, as has always been the case at the Gabba. The abrupt shift in the attack line suddenly took the Australian batting lineup off guard.
That and the way he just kept coming in like a man possessed, except that he had the largest smile you’d ever seen on a man possessed. How can someone who, until 14 months ago, had only bowled with a tape ball and a bunch of fruits, start hitting a pink ball to strike the one crack outside a right-hander’s off-stump, as he did when he removed Cameron Green, or continue to nail the yorker at will? Perhaps that is simply the brilliance gene that Shamar Joseph was unaware he possessed. Perhaps we will never know.
Yes, this spell will be compared to the spells of other renowned West Indian fast bowlers. Do you recall Sir Curtly Ambrose using his 7/1 to rip through the Australians? However, that was Ambrose at his best, much as you had players like Ian Bishop and Courtney Walsh at their best when the West Indies last triumphed in a Test match played in Australia.
This was a young person who, when he first accessed the internet in his late teens, first began to encounter videos of Ambrose, Walsh, and Bishop four years ago. In the end, though, it was Lara, Hooper, and Bishop who were approaching Shamar to take selfies. Their day, if not their year, had been made by him. Breaking down in the ABC box was Hooper. Lara in the Fox Commentary Studio is the same. Despite everything, Bishop urged the reporter to wait a minute for a radio interview so he could take a picture with the hero of the moment.This represented the past embracing the future after years of asking modern West Indian players to strive to appreciate the splendors of their past. Actually, quite literally.
If anything, it served as a reminder of how the cricket community as a whole should approach this triumph. Let’s not pay attention to the ratings or rankings. not look back longingly or forecast the future. Let us simply remain in the here and now and commemorate one of the greatest victories in sports history.
Or just take advice from Shamar Joseph. After wrapping up his festivities and giving numerous bows to the audience, he lingered to sign autographs and take photos with the hundreds of people who had gathered at the Gabba to savor the occasion with the show’s star. Shamar Joseph was enjoying the time of his life that evening, but on the day the cricket world lost its collective mind over the greatest incredible triumph in Test history, he went about his business as usual.