Only the most cloth-eared cricket fan will have failed to hear the ominous cacophony surrounding Test cricket over the past month. First up, the clanging chimes of Jason Holder: “If we continue in this manner, Test cricket will die.” The former West Indies captain lamented last week from the sidelines of the ILT20 in the UAE at the very same time some of his fellow countrymen are duking it out against Australia in the current two-Test series.
Players aren’t the only ones sounding the alarm. The Marylebone Cricket Club has announced its plans for a cricket symposium to discuss the myriad challenges facing the global game. For some, the sound of the guillotine being raised above Test cricket’s head is drowned out only by the hollow clack-clacking of the ICC’s empty knitting needles at the side of the blade.
But there are also hushed notes of hope. The game, somehow, finds a way. After all, it found Shamar Joseph. Just after tea on day one at a sun-soaked Adelaide Oval the 24-year-old fast bowling debutant became only the 23rd player in Test history to take a wicket with his first ball. It was one of those moments that transcends. The sight of the bowler gliding in to land the ball on that handkerchief-sized spot outside off-stump with enough pace to draw the gimlet-eyed Steve Smith into a stroke, and with just enough movement to see the edge taken before Smith could retract his blade in time, was one to savour. The catch safely snaffled by fellow debutant Justin Greaves at third slip, Joseph then really let loose in celebration, limbs thrusting like pistons as he traversed the outfield, his teammates sprinting and scrabbling to catch up with him.
Joseph’s journey to that moment on the green turf of the Adelaide Oval is barely believable. Here’s a kid from the tiny remote village of Baracara in deepest Guyana, its population of about 350 people were isolated from much of the wider world until five years ago when mobile and internet coverage arrived. As a child, Joseph had happened upon some footage of Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh doing their thing on a black and white TV and it changed his life.
Not right away of course, but the game had him in its clutches. Anyone who has ever tossed themselves an apple from the fruit bowl and imagined that they’ve just held a skier at the SCG or spun a nectarine from one hand to the other a la Shane Warne at the top of his mark will recognise what came next. Joseph bowled with anything he could get his hands on. At first this was lemons, limes and guava, later it was ad hoc games with a ball made of tightly wound tape.
But with the onset of adulthood, real life intervened. A close escape when working for a local logging company led him to make the move from his home village.
“In Baracara, logging was the only way to make a living” Joseph told Cricbuzz’s Bharat Sundaresan before the start of the Adelaide Test. “One day, a tree fell and narrowly missed hitting me on the way down … It was a very narrow escape. I said in that moment, as my life flashed before my eyes, that I can’t do this any more. I had to move out.”
A 200km journey down the Canje River took him to New Amsterdam, the regional capital, where Joseph worked as a security guard to support his young family. By pure chance, the house next door belonged to West Indian white ball specialist Romario Shepherd. An introduction was then made to Guyana head coach Esuan Crandon and things began to happen quickly. Joseph met and impressed Ambrose at a regional fast bowling clinic – where he first got his hands on a proper cricket ball. Just 11 months ago he played his first game (at any level) of cricket for Guyana.
Regular wickets in eight more professional matches followed before Joseph found himself on the plane to Australia. His Test debut included not only the indelible first ball wicket of Smith, but a skilful five-wicket haul and an eye-catching innings of 36 with the bat at number 11. He seems sure to start when the second Test begins in Brisbane today.
“You should get yourself up the order” Smith joked with him after the match. “I’m an admirer, I really like you, man,” replied Joseph, not that the debutant was too deferential – an hour earlier the rookie had beckoned Smith over to tie his shoelace, encumbered as he was in full batting regalia. Smith duly obliged with a chuckle.
There is no doubting that Test cricket faces many challenges in its present and immediate future, just as it has faced and fought plenty in its past. And who knows where Joseph’s journey in cricket will take him, he’s taking his first international steps in a decidedly uncertain landscape. But for now, he has his moment and that is enough. “I’ll remember this day for the rest of my life,” he said at the close the first day.
The game itself though, with its ability to reach the remotest places, the power to tap into something elemental, the capacity to inspire dreams and allow them – sometimes – to become reality, will surely endure.
