Cameron Green, who faced conditions where he acknowledged that batters were frequently left “praying” that they weren’t undone by the unexpected bounce, thinks that his crucial half-century on the third day in Grenada will launch his career as a Test No. 3.
After surviving the second night against an enraged Jayden Seales, Green played a relatively untested ball on the third morning, mostly with the infallible Steven Smith in a 93-run partnership that served as the foundation for Australia’s innings.
Green saw a delivery from Anderson following an early weather delay.
Phillip beat wicketkeeper Shai Hope with a low shot beyond his off stump and fled for four byes. “Praying…that’s all you can really do,” he replied. “You just try and forget about it as much as possible.”
With a crunching straight drive, Green managed to maintain his concentration and reach a half-century after 122 balls. However, he underedged his subsequent delivery into the stumps and threw his bat to the ground in despair.
Nevertheless, after being assigned to the No. 3 spot against South Africa in the World Test Championship final last month, this was Green’s most significant contribution to date. At a time when Australia’s top three are still being closely watched, it was a much-needed reassuring sign.
“You always need innings here and there just to get you back and get you going, hopefully today was certainly one of those,” he stated. “I can benefit greatly from simply spending time in the middle. The ball’s face has been going upward, in my opinion. Although there haven’t been any runs, I can still draw some conclusions from it.
“Hopefully my output can be a little bit better than it has been, but today was a nice sign that things are hopefully trending well.”
Green stated that he is aware of the expectations of an Australia top-order batsman but does not pay attention to what is said about his performance outside of the dressing room. Green fell four balls after being given a life in the first innings.
“You all know when you’re playing that there’s runs that need to be made certainly when you’re batting up the order for Australia,” he stated. “It’s a tough game, so being able to bounce back from tough times is equally as important.”
Green acknowledged that it might not have always appeared that way when Smith was on strike, but it was a surface where he never felt completely “in” since a ball was never far from performing a few acrobatics.
“Certainly, last night was tricky [and then] with the new ball today you had to start again and there were a few ball changes, so I never really felt at any point it looked that good,” he stated. “You would most likely pose a different query to Steve. He was batting on a separate wicket, I believe. Playing as well as he did was amazing because he is obviously a level above and that is a difficult wicket.
Smith was so aware of the pitch’s difficulties that he changed his trigger movement to remain motionless at the crease after Phillip’s early, low delivery.
“This innings, I decided to bat on middle to stay a bit more still [to] try and negate lbw as much as possible with the ball shooting a little bit low,” Smith stated in the broadcast following the game. “I’ll do my best to use my entire face. I felt I did a good job on that. Then, try to profit on everything that is loose. In order to restore pressure on the bowler, you must attempt to put the bad balls away. The collaboration with Greeny was pleasant. He performed pretty well, in my opinion, and helped set us up for the remainder of the inning.
Despite adding that a target of more than 300 would be the goal, Smith described Australia as being in a “nice spot” going into the fourth day with a lead of 254 and three wickets remaining.
“I don’t think the wicket is going to get any better to bat,” he stated. “With the newest ball in particular, there will likely be a few more tricks. I believe that when they changed the ball today, it began to perform a few additional tasks, and it was challenging. When we have the chance, I believe the new ball will be very important to us.
All-rounder Justin Greaves, who took the wickets of Smith and Beau Webster, stated that the West Indies still think they can win the chase, but they need learn from Australia’s middle-order’s performance.
“The new ball does pretty much everything,” he stated. “Batting becomes slightly easier as soon as the ball becomes a little softer. We must strive to think that we can achieve the score that we can restrict Australia to, perhaps less than 300.
“All we have to do is be upbeat when we bat. Throughout the series, I’m sure I’ve taken some cues from Travis Head and Beau Webster—just maintaining that optimistic outlook.”
India
