Lyon the main man as Australia see off West Indies
Nathan Lyon spun Australia to victory in the opening cricket test against the West Indies in Perth yesterday.
Set 498 to win, and starting the day on 192-3, West Indies stumbled against Lyon to be bowled out for 333 in their second innings, with Australia clinching a win by 164 runs.
Roston Chase and Alzarri Joseph provided a brief thorn in Australia’s side during the second session, putting together a partnership of 82 for the eighth wicket.
Chase made 55 and Joseph 43 before part-time spinner Travis Head bowled Joseph, then Lyon finished the innings with two wickets in two bowls to end with 6-128 off 42.5 overs.
Skipper Kraigg Brathwaite topscored for the visitors with an obdurate 110, standing between West Indies and a meek capitulation.
West Indies were comfortably placed at 207-3 early yesterday but lost four wickets in 17 overs to slump to 233-7.
Lyon claimed 2-5 in 15 balls to remove the overnight pair of Brathwaite and Kyle Mayers in the first hour of the day.
After Mayers (10) had edged a delivery that spun across him to Steve Smith at slip, Lyon got a delivery to turn sharply and beat Brathwaite all ends up to claim the prized wicket of the West Indies skipper.
Brathwaite had carried West Indies’ hopes of salvaging a draw from a hopeless position but his fall broke the tourists’ resistance.
Brathwaite had defied the vaunted Australian bowling attack for just over five hours in scoring his 11th ton in 80 tests, hitting 14 boundaries off 188 balls. Jason Holder (three) went for a big drive and edged to Smith at slip, who took a brilliant catch off Head (2-25) tumbling to his left as the West Indies nose-dived.
West Indies, once the powerhouse of world cricket, have not beaten Australia in 12 tests since beating Steve Waugh’s side in the fourth test of a dead rubber under the captaincy of Brian Lara in Antigua in May 2003.
Man of the match Marnus Labuschagne scored 204 in Australia’s first innings of 598-4 declared and then an unbeaten 104 not out in the second, the first Australian to score a double-hundred and a century in the same match since Greg Chappell in 1974.
The teams now head to Adelaide for the second test, a day-night game, starting on Thursday.