Pink-ball rematch for Australia, West Indies in play as Ambrose likens Joseph to iconic Marshall

Shamar Joseph’s pink-ball heroics have earned the highest praise from Curtly Ambrose and opened the possibility of a three-Test rematch between the West Indies and Australia next year.

Australia are due to play Tests in the Caribbean for the first time in a decade in 2025. The first day/night Test took place in Adelaide in December 2015, six months after the team, then led by Michael Clarke, played two matches in Dominica and Jamaica.

Shamar Joseph celebrates with teammates at the Gabba.Credit: Getty

Three sources with knowledge of plans, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to speak freely, told this masthead that extending the series from two Test matches to three is now a live option after Joseph’s staggering display at the Gabba that delivered an eight-run win for Kraigg Brathwaite’s team – the West Indies’ first in Australia since 1997.

The third match of the series would be a pink-ball game played under lights in a friendlier time zone for television and streaming viewers in Australia.

National coach Andrew McDonald and Cricket Australia chief executive Nick Hockley have each expressed a recent preference for Test series to be played as a three-match minimum because two-game series often feel incomplete.

The sight of Pat Cummins’ team on the dais, having retained the Frank Worrell Trophy but with the series shared 1-1, lent a somewhat hollow air to proceedings after Joseph’s remarkable spell.

West Indian pace legend Ambrose, who helped identify Joseph on his way into the Test team, paralleled him with the late, great Malcolm Marshall – regarded as perhaps the greatest of all Caribbean quicks.

“He is a skiddy customer more in the mould of Malcolm Marshall,” Ambrose told The Daily Star in Dhaka. “So, I hope that he remains focused, humble and continues to learn his craft and tries to learn and improve every single day.

New West Indian speed sensation Shamar Joseph has been likened to the Carribean team’s revered fast bowler Malcolm Marshall.Credit: Getty/AllSport

“I would like to see Shamar Joseph play a lot of red-ball cricket. He has just started his career, so he needs to learn and understand what it takes to become a world-class fast bowler, and then you can always branch out to ODIs or T20 cricket. But learn the art first, make sure he’s got a solid foundation and then he can branch out.

“He is the type of person who could go on to become a successful cricketer. He is certainly a huge find for West Indies cricket, and as long he can continue, I think he could be a force to be reckoned with in world cricket.”

One of the historical drawbacks of Caribbean cricket has been its time zone, with day matches played between the hours of midnight and 9am in Australia. But a day/night Test in the region could be played until around lunchtime here, offering a much more attractive prospect for broadcasters.

West Indies cricket has long been handicapped by the fact that the bilateral touring system is based largely on the broadcast value of home markets. In recent years, major Pay TV broadcasters, such as Foxtel, Sky in the UK and Star in India, have paid higher fees for home-market rights while being less aggressive in buying overseas rights.

In the Caribbean, where the domestic broadcast market has never been strong, overseas rights fees are a much larger portion of the West Indies’ revenue. Finding ways of making Caribbean series more attractive to different time zones is a key quest, as it would allow for the scheduling and playing of more Test cricket.

To date, West Indies have only played one pink-ball Test on home soil, a four-wicket loss to Sri Lanka in Barbados in 2018. CA’s chair Mike Baird and other cricket authorities are due to discuss the future of Test cricket at the next round of International Cricket Council meetings in March.

Curtly Ambrose and the West Indies celebrate their 1992-93 series win in Australia.Credit: The Age

The 2025 tour will be Australia’s first assignment as part of the 2025-27 World Test Championship, with the team now needing to play some catch-up in the current cycle after dropping a home Test they were expected to win. Ambrose backed up Brathwaite’s post-match assertion that West Indies needed to be given more opportunities to play Test cricket.

“It does matter a lot as when the team travelled to Australia not many people gave them the chance to even compete, let alone winning a Test match,” Ambrose said. “We sent a team where we have seven or eight [seven] young players who never played Test match cricket.

“To me that was significant and that should do their confidence a world of good, and let’s hope they can build on this going forward. The only downside for West Indies is we are not playing enough Test cricket.

“If you see, we have played just a two-match Test series against Australia and I mean we need to play more Test match cricket. You need to believe that once West Indies starts winning Test matches against top teams, I think we might see West Indies playing more Test matches in future.”

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