Impossible? Tell that to Shamar Joseph

Gingerly, carefully and optimistically, Shamar Joseph warmed up to try to bowl on the final day of the series. His right foot, not broken but badly bruised by a Mitchell Starc yorker, had been settled with painkillers but still looked a long way from flexibility.

Looking on from their warm-up, Australia’s players observed quizzically. Surely Joseph, playing his second Test match, did not have any more miracles to deliver after his batting heroics and first-ball dismissal of Steve Smith in Adelaide? Did he ever!

There was no sign of his toe injury as Shamar Joseph celebrated bowling the West Indies to a famous Test win over Australia at the Gabba.Credit: Getty Images

Figures of 7-68, capped off by the cartwheeling off stump of Josh Hazlewood to hand West Indies an eight-run victory, are now forever etched into Test match lore. So often cast as the greatest victims of the Twenty20 franchise era, the undersung Caribbean side now has new and joyful life.

Seldom does a bowler turn a Test match on its head like Joseph did here. Almost never does a rookie West Indian do so. Almost never does anyone do it to Australia on these shores. Almost never does anyone do it as a visitor to the Gabba.

Joseph’s performance will be long remembered, twisting a comfortable Australian victory into one of the best Test finishes seen in this country for decades. Perhaps only New Zealand’s narrow win at Hobart in 2011 comes close since the turn of the century.

Looking back, the most similarly impactful spell by a West Indian in Australia was Curtly Ambrose’s 7-1 demolition of Allan Border’s team in Perth in 1993. Ambrose, though, was already an established great of the game – Joseph is writing fresh pages of history faster than any publisher could possibly print them.

It looked unlikely that Shamar Joseph would be able to bowl in Australia’s second innings when he was hobbled by a searing Mitchell Starc yorker.Credit: Getty Images

But as he turned at the top of his mark for the fifth ball of his second over, Joseph could see the scoreboard telling a familiar tale. Australia were 2-113 and only 103 runs from yet another victory over the West Indies – 16 since their last defeat, way back in 2003. The scenario looked to be an impossible one.

Then again, impossible is not a word that Joseph seems to have thought much about, having emerged from the remote Guyana village of Baracara, tape-ball cricket and jobs in logging and security before sprinting up the pathway of West Indian cricket. On the final day, Joseph arrived at the ground without his match shirt. Only some better-than-expected warm-up deliveries caused it to be sent for.

He took the pink ball, charged in on that battered toe, and fizzed it down to knock back Cameron Green’s off stump via the all-rounder’s elbow. All series, Joseph’s knowledge of Australia’s batters, their strengths and weaknesses, has been first class. He showed it yet again next ball, firing in a 141km/h yorker that Travis Head could do nothing about, walking back into the dressing rooms for a king pair.

Two overs later the speed gun clocked 144km/h for a lifter that Mitchell Marsh snicked into the cordon, to be dismissed via a juggle between second and third slips. Alex Carey lasted five balls, bowled between bat and pad as Joseph targeted one of the weaker forward defences in the Australian team. West Indies were into the tail and Pat Cummins’ men still needed 80 runs.

For a little while, Mitchell Starc’s brand of fierce hitting lifted Australia’s hopes, while Smith stayed in his bubble at the other end. Joseph, though, would not leave the attack, and eventually coaxed a skier from Starc. When Cummins fenced at another short ball and nibbled an edge behind, Australia were eight down with 41 to get.

Due to a playing condition allowing for an extension in the event of a result becoming possible, Kraigg Brathwaite kept the West Indies going for another four overs, delaying the dinner break. Nathan Lyon had several nervy moments, once hooking tantalisingly in the vicinity of fine leg, but the ninth wicket partnership held.

Throughout a spell that ultimately stretched to 10 unbroken overs, Joseph’s speed did anything but flag. He was as fast, at times, as 149km/h, as adrenaline and skill merged to give the Australians a helluva rough time. Never did captain Brathwaite look to snatch the ball from Joseph; never would Joseph have allowed him to.

Smith, by the way, played superbly. His pre-movement is now back in sync after struggles in the first three innings of the series, and he scored with security off both front and back feet to provide the spine of a chase that would have fallen completely apart otherwise. This time Joseph found the former captain impassable.

Lyon glanced a boundary on resumption, but then hooked compulsively at Alzarri Joseph and edged behind. Smith was left with 25 to get and only last man Josh Hazlewood for company.

Smith, his eye now gimlet, crashed one pull shot to the boundary, but gloved the next one narrowly wide of slips and shook his hand in pain. Next over he ramped Alzarri Joseph for an audacious six. A two and a single next over left Hazlewood with two balls to survive.

With his first attempt at Hazlewood, Joseph had not got things quite right. This time, though, he flung down a delivery that would have defeated many better players: off stump went flying, and Joseph led his teammates in uproarious celebrations that coalesced near the West Indies dugout.

It was a dismissal heard round the world. At the Test’s climax, ESPNcricinfo, the game’s global information source, reported more traffic for the Gabba than India’s parallel Test against England in Hyderabad. Joseph’s heroics created a tectonic shift in audience.

West Indies had not won in Australia since 1997; they had not won at the Gabba since 1988. Little wonder the 3162 spectators, part of a healthy match attendance of 67,164, applauded so warmly. They saw a finish every bit as memorable as the legendary tied Test of 1960 – another drama to end with a scene of West Indian jubilation.

In the commentary boxes and on the boundary, Brian Lara, Ian Bishop and Carl Hooper all wept with joy. Lara was later an attentive listener at Joseph’s press conference and applauded warmly when the 24-year-old declared he would “always” be available to play Test cricket.

Lara, meanwhile, had purchased two bottles of Moet to take into the West Indian dressing room. Caribbean sides have always been great celebrators: Joseph had given this one something to rejoice in all the way back home.

For Australia, there is much to think about, but never mind that right now. This was Shamar Joseph’s moment. This will forever be known as Shamar Joseph’s match.

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