For Shamar Joseph to have bowled the perfect ball – a steaming, unerring delivery to an Australian number 11 batter as the fifth ball of his over, knowing that the great Australian batter, Steve Smith, was lined up to face the next over with a great opportunity to score the winning eight runs, was of cosmic significance.
It speaks of an incisive mind, an arm powered by West Indian pride, inherited from his great ancestors, to have delivered the deadly blow which shocked a proud and highly competitive cricketing nation to its core.
The steaming delivery, registering 140 kilometres-plus, landed on middle stump and deviated marginally to beat the hopeful prod of Australian Josh Hazelwood and hit his off stump out of the ground. It won for the West Indies, their first victory in a Test match in Australia for 27 years. This had to be one of the greatest moments in cricketing history.
In the decades to come, the finish of this Test match will be ranked with the last over of the tied Test between these two teams in 1960. Then, two of the greatest captains in Test cricket were involved: the shrewd and noble West Indian Frank Worrell and the Australian great Richie Benaud.
As important as they were to the outcome of the game and series, the major characters in the dramatic last act was first the explosive West Indian fast bowler, Wes Hall. Assigned to bowl the last ball, with a warning from his skipper Worrell that if he bowled a “no-ball” to give Australia the winning run, he would not be allowed back into his home country, Barbados.
Big Wes delivered a legal ball, which did not uproot the stumps, but it took the throw of an unassuming West Indian fieldsman, Joe Solomon, Guyanese like Shamar, both from deeply rural country villages, to hit the stumps from a side-on position with the Australian batsman stranded to tie the scores and the match.
This time though, Shamar’s feat of taking seven wickets for 68 runs off 11.5 overs won the game for a West Indies region that has struggled for the last 25 years, after its glory of the previous 15 years as the undisputed greatest Test cricket team of all time.
What West Indians are celebrating is a feeling of great pride for defeating the number one Test team in this one match; a David and Goliath feat.
Kraigg Brathwaite’s young and inexperienced side was expected to be demolished by Australia, typically merciless against teams unable to compete at the highest level in the most challenging of formats. During the two Tests, they were on occasion clearly out-played. But on this last day of the series, having set the Australian batters a meagre 216-run target to win, the West Indians stayed the course to defeat the world champions.
In the highest quality of sporting spirit, the Australian crowd at the game, and in the commentary box with many great past players, behaved most graciously. Indeed, the display of sportsmanship matched that of the tens of thousands of Australians who lined the streets at the end of the 1960 series to say farewell to Worrell and his men. There is still a long road ahead, but the West Indies have marked this spot.