Bridgetown: Mitchell Starc is confident that the surface at Kensington... According to ESPNcricinfo, the Oval will not follow the same path as Lord's during the recent World Test Championship (WTC) final, as Australia seeks to set a difficult target and avoid a rare series loss to the West Indies.
Earlier this month at Lord's, both Australia and South Africa suffered low first-innings totals before conditions improved significantly on Day 3 in bright skies. Starc himself scored a half-century in that match, while Aiden Markram and Temba Bavuma led South Africa to a historic chase.
Travis Head and Beau Webster will continue Australia's second innings on Day 3 with an 82-run advantage.
According to ESPNcricinfo, Starc believed the Lord's wicket was quite flat when the sun came out.
I definitely found it simple to bat on. This one we've observed for two days; there's much variation (bounce) there. On day one, we observed the ball bowled low, and then the following over, it rose up and took a wicket. I believe it will be the same tomorrow. And some decent bowling that produces enough opportunities, he added.
There was a brief partnership between Beau and Trav (Travis Head) at the end, so hopefully that will continue in the morning and then we can push it as far as we can with some lower-order runs and go from there. He noted, "I believe there have been enough of chances (being created) as we've seen for the last two days that you're never quite in and you never know what total is going to be enough. "
When West Indies head coach Daren Sammy was asked what target he would consider chaseable, he joked, "I'd love to chase 82. Someone get a double hattrick or something. "
The comment, while lighthearted, was made by a clearly annoyed Sammy, who has expressed dissatisfaction with umpiring decisions and was upset by his team's fielding mistakes. West Indies discarded Sam Konstas twice on zero, bringing their total missed catches in the match to six, five of which came off Shamar Joseph's bowling. Thankfully for the hosts, Konstas could only manage five runs before Joseph bowled him out for the second time in the game.
Pretty sure they're going to get a nice bollocking. Not overly angry, but definitely with an attitude, Sammy said, according to ESPNcricinfo.
Similarly to how you improve your batting and bowling, you should also prioritize your fielding and catching. Catching a slip is a skill. As someone who has fielded there, it's a talent we must regularly work on and invest time in, he said.
Good teams will capitalize on your mistakes. So far, it hasn't been too expensive, but this is something that will continue for us to improve on the goals we have for this team. He emphasized the need to improve our catching efficiency.
Despite missing chances, the West Indies, particularly Shamar Joseph, made an early statement in the Test match. The pacer exposed Konstas' weakness, easily dismissing him twice with scores of 3 and 5, making the young batter's second innings extremely uncomfortable.
I believe he had three opportunities and still scored five, Sammy said, according to ESPNcricinfo.
Credit to our boys. The strategies we had for their top order, along with the areas the guys bowled to him, made it extremely tough. Kudos to Shamar because, before the Test started, he mentioned that he was ready for Konstas when they asked about him.
