Dinner Australia 24 for 4 (Khawaja 6*, Roach 3-13) trail West Indies 311 (Da Silva 79, Hodge 71, Sinclair 50, Starc 4-82) by 287 runs
Steven Smith was trapped lbw in Roach’s opening over of Australia’s innings, shuffling back and across too far to a ball that nipped in and hit him flush in front of off stump. Nitin Menon initially gave it not out but it was smashing middle on the ball-tracking projection.
Cameron Green entered and played a lovely off-drive to find the rope, but then meekly chipped an overpitched delivery straight to Kraigg Brathwaite at mid-off to gift Roach a second. Next ball, Travis Head was strangled down the leg side, tickling a half-volley to keeper Joshua Da Silva to squeals of delight from the West Indies team.
Earlier, Sinclair and Roach frustrated Australia’s bowlers in the morning session, batting through the first hour without loss. Roach was the immovable object while Sinclair did the bulk of the scoring. Australia’s quicks were left frustrated as the second new ball softened quickly and offered very little sideways movement despite Brisbane’s humidity and heavy cloud cover.
Australia did set some very defensive fields with a deep point placed throughout the morning allowing easy singles to be picked off.
The partnership was only broken because of a huge mix-up. Roach defended a ball to mid-off and called for a single, but Sinclair caught a glimpse of Labuschagne swooping in and made a very late call of no with Roach already halfway down. He slipped over trying to put the brakes on and was run out with ease.
Australia could have removed Sinclair on 30. He poked Pat Cummins straight to gully and Green spilt a sitter at thigh height.
Sinclair made Green and Australia pay with some excellent shots thereafter. He swept Nathan Lyon for four and then lofted him inside-out over mid-off in consecutive balls to move from 40 to a maiden half-century. He fell next ball, running past a ball that drifted away and was stumped by Alex Carey, who needed two bites to complete the take.
