Furious, informal: to become very angry indeed. Also, what Shamar Joseph did in the Larwood and Worth Bar at Trent Bridge during the West Indies match, when everything in England, like the tiles flying off the ball towards the fans below, was It fell apart.
It’s hard to say whether Brendan McCullum symbolically peaked after Joseph actually did it – the England coach isn’t really one to show obvious anger, or even one who clearly shows disapproval of what happened to him Someone who is very concerned about the game in front of him – but at least he must be very angry. England made a huge contribution in defending the final wicket to take West Indies from a 30-run deficit to a 41-run lead at the end of the first innings, but perhaps they were left feeling uneasy about what had happened. You can be forgiven for being surprised.
A few years ago, Joseph was known as a safety. The 24-year-old only played 17 first-class innings, 29.4% of which he did not score. He batted four times in limited overs cricket and scored more than zero on one occasion. Ollie Pope has faced more balls in this series than Joseph has faced in his entire career, across all teams and in any format. England’s game plan was based on him being rubbish, but it turns out their game plan wasn’t up to par.
It wasn’t just England who were surprised by the quality of Joseph’s batting: his teammate Joshua da Silva spent several overs doing everything he could to hide his ball, facing 16 of 18 passes, Only 2 balls were scored and then he launched into the last over and some of them came into the stands to tell about his half century. This allowed Joseph to handle what came next, which he did well.
The game was divided into two halves, one in which England played very well and the other in which they completely abandoned all sense and sanity. In the first 15 overs, West Indies scored 28 runs and lost 4 wickets: the bowling was disciplined, the ball suddenly found the joy of lateral movement, and for the first time in the previous sunny week, it had a chance to win Fly under thick clouds and floodlights, and with that comes opportunity. But after finding a method that worked, England abandoned it.
Da Silva’s only Test century in Grenada came two years ago against the same opponents in similar circumstances, when he and Jayden Sears put on a 52-run stand for the last wicket. “I fully expected what was going to happen,” he said of England’s tactics here. “The same thing happened in Grenada, so I tried to replicate the innings I played there.” England’s plan seemed to be to provide him with a single, get him out without effort and then wait for Joseph to hand over his wicket. It was a passive game of cricket that completely lacked the ambition and aggression that is the hallmark of this team.
Joseph proved unwilling to co-operate and after he dismissed Gus Atkinson for 16, sending one of his sixes into the Fox Road Stand and another hitting the pub roof, all was lost It got really bad.
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“This is a time in cricket where, in the history of the game, it always puts people in trouble,” Chris Woakes said of the last wicket. “You just have to commit to the plan you’re working on. You know it’s not always going to be perfect. Generally speaking, with a batsman out there – once the bowler is out, it’s easy not to try to get that guy out and Consider No. 11, but at the same time you don’t want to give up easy boundaries and you don’t expect No. 11 to hit a few of them into the stands.
England tried a few spins but failed to impress and the experiment came to an end when Da Silva destroyed Joe Root’s 18 and when Mark Wood was asked to pass another England were about in Plan L when the spell whipped itself up. It took just five balls for him to finally force Joseph into a mistake, ending a revealing and often confusing period of play. It may ultimately have had no impact on the outcome of this game, but England’s scoreboard would have looked much better without those 71 runs.
