The Yorkers of Shamar Joseph

The latest republication of Vijay Prashad's monthly column on cricket called Leg Glance that appears in Deshabhimani Weekly in Kerala.

Some balls are unplayable. Ask Travis Head, one of Australia’s most reliable middle-order batsmen. He had scored a duck in the first innings against the West Indies, going after a full ball from the fast bowler Kemar Roach that was going down the leg side. Head could have left it alone, but he reached for it and sent it into the gloves of Joshua Da Silva. When he walked out for Australia’s second innings, Travis Head had to keep his concentration and take his team from 113 for three wickets to victory at 216 runs. It was the fourth day. There was plenty of time and the West Indies had a problem.

One of their fast bowlers – twenty-four-year-old Shamar Joseph had been struck on the toe on the previous day. Mitch Starc, the veteran Australian quick, decided that enough was enough. Joseph, who bats left-handed but bowls with his right, had been there long enough. A very fast in-swinging yorker targeted either Joseph’s toe or his stumps. The young bowler couldn’t move his feet fast enough and so was struck on the toe. Starc appealed, and Joseph was given out. It turns out, Starc had overstepped the line, and the umpire declared it was a no-ball. But Joseph was in terrible pain. It was Travis Head who walked over to Joseph and asked him if he was ok. He was not. His shoes and socks off, he walked off the field, retired hurt. There was a worry that he would not be able to return to bowl against Australia, which had been given a reasonably small target. Head joined Steve Smith on a lovely day to finish the job for the baggy green caps.

Sharmar Joseph was born in Baracara, Guyana, a small community formed by people of African descent who had fled the slave plantations and built a maroon, a free community. One of six children to Eustace and Carlin Joseph, Shamar lived on the Canje River deep in the interior of Berbice (you must take a speedboat to get to his village). The village had one primary school, where Shamar had a senior – Romario Shepard – who now, like Joseph, plays for the West Indies. Like many of the best cricketers from the Global South, Shamar began to play tape-ball cricket, getting into one or the other of the teams in Baracara (Young Strikers and Show Times). A security guard job in New Amsterdam allowed Shamar to move up into the world of Guyanese cricket and then eventually be selected to play for the West Indies because of his lightning-fast bowling.

A damaged toe was not going to hurt this young man from Baracara. It was bandaged up and he was on the field to bowl on the fourth day of the second test. After the twenty-fourth over, with Australia at 71 for 2, Joseph came onto the field. He had missed the earlier session but was there in the warm-up nets before play began. There was speculation: if the young man is back on the field, surely, he is going to bowl. Then, West Indies captain Kraigg Brathwaite gave the nod to Shamar Joseph. Joseph to Cam Green, who is settled and hungry. That first over Green blasted Joseph for two fours (one a thick edge over the slips and the second a beautifully timed drive through the covers). Joseph had not yet found his momentum.

One of the most misleading things about fast bowling is that it is seen to be about speed and brawn. But the trick of fast bowling is not that unplayable fastball on the stumps or that short ball that forces the batsman to swerve. It is the game between the bowler and the batsman, the variations of length and line, the faster and slower ball, and the unpredictability of the bowler’s tricks. It often takes time for a younger bowler like Shamar Joseph to get the line right, to test the batsman who fidgets in anticipation of the unplayable ball. In his second over from Shamar Joseph, Cameron Green guided the ball with a late cut to the fence. I thought that by now, the score at 114 for four with Steve Smith all settled in at 49 and Green with three fours of Joseph in two overs at 42, these two Aussies would guide their team home to victory.

Then out of nowhere, two unplayable balls. First, to Green, the red ball dropped and then bounced so high that Green – who is tall – could not follow it, was struck on the elbow, and then bowled, the bailing flying in all directions. I don’t know how fast this ball was, but it certainly came out of nowhere. This was the one that gets wickets. And it did. Joseph was elated. He ran around the field with pure joy on his face. Second, Travis Head – who had comforted Shamar on the previous day – came in, took his guard, and waited. Shamar came in, around the wicket, the ball superfast, a yorker just as Starc had sent to his toe; Head, who is a very smart batsman, just could not get his bat down to the pitch to defend and the ball slipped under and smashed his stumps. The television sets in Baracara, even though it was late at night, rattled out the news that their hometown boy was on a hat-trick. Head walked off despondent. This was his fourth consecutive duck at the Gabba.

Shamar Joseph didn’t get the hat trick because he bowled to Steve Smith, who paddled him away for a run. But this did not matter. The flood came soon after. Joseph bowled another fast one with an unexpected bounce just outside the off stump and Mitch Marsh tickled it to the keeper; another yorker and Alex Carey was gone; a back-of-a-length fastball to Starc caught the bat and flew high into the air to offer an easy catch. Australia was suddenly at 171 for seven. They still had a chance with Smith there and Cummins in to score the remaining 45 runs. Smith with 70 runs was in good form. It was possible. But Shamar Joseph, who had almost broken his toe the previous day, had taken five wickets and changed the mood. Joseph got Cummins a few overs later, and after Lyon goes to Alzarri Joseph, Shamar Joseph bowls what the Aussies call a “ripper” to Josh Hazelwood that wobbles at high speed between the middle and off stump, taking both off.

Shamar Joseph, relatively unknown, bowled almost twelve overs in a row with a near-broken toe and took seven wickets for 68 runs, giving the West Indies its first win in Australia since 1997.

It is not easy to bowl a yorker. They often leave the hand too early and end up as half volleys which can be easily dispatched to the fence. Watching Joseph bowl one almost perfect yorker after the other was a treat. His length was sublime, his confidence beautiful. I tried to find some clips of John Trim, who was also from Berbice and was the first man from Guyana to play for the West Indies (1948-52). But I could not find any. During the West Indies tour of Australia, Trim took five wickets for thirty-five runs in Melbourne in twelve overs. Australia won that test by one wicket. Trim died in 1960 at the age of forty-five. He, like many minor cricketers, is not remembered. I read about him in Ian Woodward’s compendium on the matches between Australia and the West Indies. It was the five-wicket haul that caught my eye, as well as the fact that Trim was run out for a duck in both innings (a very unusual feat). Trim, too, I gather was an aficionado of the yorker. It might have something with the tape-ball on an uneven and frequently wet ground: you might want to use your pace to harass the batsman rather than test a surface that might not allow the ball to bounce. Maybe that’s where Trim and Shamar Joseph decided to perfect the yorker, the gift from Guyana’s interior.