Brathwaite hit two fours in Pattinson’s next over but, having been struck to the ropes by Bravo in his third, the paceman bounced back to induce an inside edge onto the stumps.
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Resuming their first innings on 207 for six, the Caribbean side were dismissed for 223 with left-hander Darren Bravo converting his overnight 94 into 109 – his seventh Test hundred. He followed this with the big wicket of Darren Bravo, who earlier in the day had reached a richly deserved century.
The Windies lost a total of 12 wickets within two sessions on Saturday after being forced to follow-on as pacemen Josh Hazlewood and James Pattinson cut loose.
A bonus for Smith was that his pacemen only bowled a combined 73.3 overs for the match.
Smith will sit out of the opening two Big Bash League Twenty20 games for Sydney Sixers next week as a precaution as Australia faces nearly a fortnight’s break before the second Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
Marsh has now made a compelling case to retain his spot for the Boxing Day Test, with elegant Queensland Bulls strokemaker Usman Khawaja set to return from a hamstring injury.
“He’s a good team man, his record is standing up and I reckon he’s getting more confidence because he feels like he’s part of the side, too”, Warne said.
“It felt like I was trying extremely hard to do that, whereas the second innings (yesterday) when I came out I was running straight lines and had my wrist behind the ball, it felt pretty easy”. In the second innings he sought to fix that, by just running in and focusing on getting his pace up.
“I can’t really focus on anything else at this point in time, we’ve brought a squad down here to play cricket and that’s exactly what I’m going to do”.
Even before a ball was bowled in Hobart, Baldath Mahabir, a director who quit the “unprofessional, tardy, lax” West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) last month, spoke of his concerns that there may be no such thing as West Indies cricket within ten years. “I think it’s just precautionary”, he said. “The spirit in the dressing room is still there, we had a few one-day series and then we had first-class cricket back home where players did well”, he said. “That’s been frustrating”, he said. It felt uncomfortable, but it’s something that I probably had to do through those stages. I landed on it yesterday and it sort of aggravated it a little bit, as well as a little bit of hip flexor soreness in my right leg as well.
Pattinson is one of a string of Australian bowlers whose workload and action have been carefully managed to try to protect them from the long-term back problems that can afflict young pacemen.
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Australia continued to expose the West Indies’ batting frailties as they skittled the tourists for 148 in their second innings.
