Green shoots

PL on how Cameron Green finds a way as Australia grind their way out of the ditch

After Day 3, Australia lead by 254 with three wickets in hand and Alex Carey at the crease on a wicket that suggests hard work for the West Indies in the chase.

Cameron Green threw his bat to the ground in disgust and frustration. Just when it looked like he’d crawled out of the tunnel and into daylight, the ball had cannoned from the bottom edge of his bat into his broken stumps.

Moments before he’d raised the same bat in acknowledgement of the applause from the crowd and the Australian dressing room. The commanding straight drive past Shamar Joseph that brought up the half-century was just his fifth boundary of an innings assembled across 123 deliveries, two days and several rain delays.

Under enormous pressure, Green had found a way in conditions that were anything but easy, and now, having picked up his bat, he was on his way for 52 before attempting a cut – something of a high-risk option on a pitch where the odd ball was keeping low – that deflected off the bottom edge.

Having missed all of the Australian summer and the Sri Lanka series, the out-of-order all-rounder (he still cannot bowl) was elevated to first drop when Marnus Labuschagne was dropped ahead of this series. Green had piled on three centuries and a half-century in five matches batting in the middle order for 2nd division county side Gloucester, but had just one Test innings of note – 174no against New Zealand in Wellington – in the previous two years.

Green in his whites and in the nets before Day 3

Like a boy who's gone to bed Friday night fully kitted up for Saturday’s game, the long-limbed batter rolling into the nets for a warm-up before play resplendent and ready in his whites. On arrival at the ground, the Australians had found the covers on and the netting in storage, but the morning rain had cleared and the staff were still banging in tent pegs and winding winches as Australia’s No.3 entered with bat in hand.

Batting coach Michael Divenuto, whose arm must surely be about to detach from its socket, gave the lumbering West Australian a series of throwdowns in the steamy conditions before Green indicated that was enough.

The No.3 headed back to the dressing rooms and did whatever in the half hour before the first ball of the third day was bowled. What must have been going through his mind? He’d been smashed for his senseless approach in the first innings, and, along with Sam Konstas, his inclusion at the top of the order was being widely questioned. It wasn’t going to be an easy day for all sorts of reasons. The wicket was sometimes lively, sometimes behaving as if auditioning for Elon Musk’s Boring Company. The West Indies bowling attack had proven themselves in the first three innings of the tour to be something of a handful in these conditions.

After lunch, Green was again ready before acceptances. The quiet giant stood alone by the boundary, bat in hand, as the ground staff dragged a skipping rope around the outfield in an attempt to take some of the rain that had fallen during the break off the grass. His batting partner, Steve Smith, presumably having lingered over dessert, arrived some minutes later.

As innings go, they didn’t get more important than this. Australia and Green needed the batter to get them out of the hole they’d found themselves in when Konstas and Usman Khawaja departed with four runs on the board the night before.