Generous praise was heaped on the Australian cricket selectors when they named Fawad Ahmed in the touring side for the West Indies and the Ashes.
But since the 33-year-old leggie was overlooked for the first Test against the Windies at Dominica before Australia romped to victory by nine wickets inside three days, Fawad’s future has become very cloudy.
This is especially so, considering how important spin was on the pitch. Windies’ leggie Devendra Bishoo claimed a career-best 6-80 off 33 with the wickets of Steve Smith, Michael Clarke, Shane Watson, Mitchell Johnson, Mitchell Starc and his own version of Shane Warne’s ‘Ball of the Century’ – 22 years to the day – bowling Brad Haddin.
Having painted themselves into a corner, there’s no way the two Australian selectors on duty in the Caribbean – Mark Waugh and Darren Lehmann – can make any changes for the second and final Test at Sabina Park starting Thursday, even though there were downsides in Dominica.
The Australian spinners – Nathan Lyon, Smith, Clarke and Adam Voges could only manage match figures of 3-128 between them, averaging 42.67.
It was the pace atack that ripped the Windies batting apart with Johnson, Starc, Josh Hazlewood, and Watson’s match figures of 17-215, averaging 12.65.
And the brittle Australian batting was again exposed with the six most experienced batsmen David Warner, Shaun Marsh, Smith, Clarke, Watson and Haddin scoring only 135 between them.
But debutant Voges, with his man of the match 130*, Johnson, Starc, Lyon and Hazlewood handsomely took the run-getting honours with 211 between them.
