Short story long – Inglis and Green make twin half-centuries in latest rout of silenced Windies

Josh Inglis and Cam Green channeled Twins energy mid-pitch with matching fifties as their odd-couple synergy powered Australia to an emphatic eight-wicket win over West Indies.

Andrew McDonald’s response to Australia’s Test batting shambles was underwhelming. He reckoned conditions were too tough for proper judgments. This was a cop out. Pitches and Dukes balls were unquestionably mischievous and yet the West Indies attack wasn’t exactly spearheaded by Joel Garner and Malcolm Marshall.

Which was the lethal combination conquered by Allan Border at Trinidad in 1984. When he made his famous 98 not out and 100 not out. When Test batters knew how to man up, dig in and fight. When Border was more gloriously grumpy and courageous than ever while Garner and Marshall tried to knock his block off, or disturb his off stump, or crush his sandshoe, but when Border stood his ground to etch the sort of rugged, marathon knocks rarely written by the more flaky current generation.

Border batted for 10 hours and 39 minutes while facing Garner, Marshall and mission impossible at the adorable Queen’s Park Oval – an allotment of time often beyond the entire Australian XI in recent Frank Worrell Trophy amusements. “It’s really difficult to make accurate judgments on both batting units based upon the surfaces that we played on,” McDonald said while holding up the Windies’ batting failures as evidence of the perilous workable conditions.

Cameron Green celebrates his half-century at Sabina Park Picture: AFP

I reckon the Windies had a reasonable excuse. They were facing the all-time great pace combination of Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and Scott Boland. Australia’s batters had no such cause for exoneration. Long story short, they didn’t have to face Starc, Cummins, Hazlewood and Boland, nor anyone remotely of the class of Garner, Marshall, Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, Curtly Ambrose or a zillion other latter-day Caribbean quicks.

Ironically, two of the Test batters, the 175cm Josh Inglis and 198cm Cam Green, resembling Danny De Vito and Arnold Schwarzenegger in Twins during their mid-pitch deliberations – “If we’re so alike, how come we’re so goddamn different!” – gave Australia a thumping eight-wicket triumph in the second T20 match at Kingston’s Sabina Park.

Immediate thoughts? The two saddest stories in sport are Cam Smith missing five straight cuts at golf’s majors and the fall of the Windies. All mojo and menace have been lost. Jamaica’s legendary two-time 100m Olympic champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce was in the audience and she probably couldn’t get out of the stadium fast enough after the latest shellacking. DeVito and Schwarzenegger were superb; the Windies were ordinary.

Andre Russell hits a six in his final T20I for the West Indies – unfortnately for the local hero, it was not a winning swanson Picture: AFP

Replying to the hosts’ ho-hum 8-172, Inglis clipped a scintillating, unbeaten 78 from 33 balls and Green clubbed 56 from 32 deliveries as Australia motored to 2-173 with the five-star luxury of 28 balls remaining. Short story long: their 131-run partnership was Australia’s highest for the third wicket, eclipsing the 118-run stand by Aaron Finch and Glenn Maxwell against Pakistan at the 2014 T20 World Cup.

Green was a powerhouse. Greenie’s coming out of the bottle for consistency. Inglis hit seven fives and four sixes from his trademark low, squatting stance that allowed him to ramp up-and-over boundaries with little more than a flick of the wrist. He helped balls on their way rather than pummelling them.

Asked to explain his innovative batting, Inglis replied: “I think it’s just the nature of my size. Guys like Greenie hit the ball so far and I don’t really have that luxury at times. I try to find ways that are easier for me to score and find different parts of the ground. I enjoyed batting at three.”

Inglis made five and 12 in a shocker of a Test at Barbados. He knew not if he should attack or settle in. If he required the long handle or the short. If he was Arthur or Martha.

No such identity crisis in T20. “I enjoyed the red ink,” he said. “Hopefully I can make three my own.”

The no-contest was the final contest of Andre Russell’s 15-year international T20 career. One of Jamaica’s favourite sons muscled 36 runs from 15 deliveries before thumping a Nathan Ellis offering to the clouds. The ball went higher than the giant bulbs giving this fair city light before Inglis took the catch like he was under a Nathan Cleary torpedo bomb. When Russell was gone, so were the Windies, regardless of Australia’s occasionally scruffy fielding.

Australia’s key runmakers Cameron Green and Josh Inglis knock gloves in front the West Indies’ Alzarri Joseph Picture: AFP

“I don’t want to finish on a losing note,” Russell said during the mid-innings break. “I think we’re 20 runs short but we’re going to try to defend it and fight.

“There’s some emotions. When I was a kid, it was a dream to play at Sabina Park, this lovely ground. I’m nervous to do well in my last game. It’s been a wonderful international career and we will try to win this game for you tonight.”

Russell finished on a losing note. The Windies were about 50 runs short. He didn’t help by dropping DeVito on 11. The local hero took 0-16 from his only over as the Sabina Park crowd was silenced. How appropriate. Windies cricket itself has gone quiet. That’s the long and the short of it. They’re being towelled up by Australia’s Starc-less, Cummins-less, Hazlewood-less, Travis Head-less B-team while falling to lowly rankings of eighth, 10th and sixth in Tests, ODIs and T20s.

West Indies opener Shai Hope walks off Sabina Park dismissed by Australia’s Glenn Maxwell Picture: AFP

“We’ve got a lot of talented players within Australia,” captain Mitch Marsh said. “The likes of Hazlewood, Starc, Cummins and Head aren’t going to be able to play all three formats all the time, so it’s a big thing to build depth in your squad and have as many options as you possibly can. When Josh Inglis is playing like that, there’s not many bowlers in the world who can bowl to him. That was an outstanding innings.”