BRIDGETOWN, Barbados: West Indies’ pace attack again exposed the vulnerability of the Australian top-order batting as the tourists stuttered to 92 for four in their second innings at stumps on the second day of the first Test at Kensington Oval on Thursday.
Trailing on first innings by just ten runs after the Caribbean side were dismissed at tea for 190 in reply to the Aussies’ first innings total of 180, the match is balanced on a knife’s edge as Australia lead by 82 runs with six wickets in hand.
Another eventful day when ten wickets fell after 14 tumbled on day one also featured contentious television umpiring decisions which left the West Indies feeling aggrieved.
Travis Head, so often the counter-attacking star for the men from Down Under in all formats of the game, will carry the battle into the third morning with all-rounder Beau Webster after all four West Indies bowlers used in the second innings so far claimed a wicket each.
Wicketless in the first innings, Alzarri Joseph was first to strike in the long final session when he trapped Usman Khawaja lbw.
Shamar Joseph, who set the tone for the bowling effort at the start of the Test the day before, had to endure Sam Konstas being dropped twice in the same over in the slips before the opener’s tortuous innings ended 20 minutes later when he played on to the same bowler.
Jayden Seales added to his five-wicket haul the day before by removing Josh Inglis for the second time in the match when the right-hander was bowled offering no shot.
Australia’s continuing experiment with Cameron Green at number three then suffered another setback when he wafted at medium-pacer Justin Greaves to be taken at first slip.
Earlier, West Indies captain Roston Chase and wicketkeeper Shai Hope held the home side’s innings together with a 67-run stand after they had slipped to 72 for five early on the second morning when debutant Brandon King was bowled for 26 shouldering arms to seamer Josh Hazlewood.

However Chase, in his 50th Test and playing his first match in the traditional format for more than two years, was ruled leg-before to Australian counterpart Pat Cummins for 44 just after lunch by television official Adrian Holdstock even though the available television replays suggested the tall right-hander had edged the ball onto his pads.
Holdstock was again the focus of attention when Hope, on 48, appeared to have been cleanly caught down the leg-side by a diving wicketkeeper Alex Carey to give Webster his second wicket.
Hope seemed equally convinced as he was almost in the players’ pavilion as repeated replays of the dismissal gave a strong indication that the ball had touched the ground as Carey attempted to complete the catch. Holdstock nevertheless upheld the dismissal.
Alzarri Joseph contributed an unbeaten 23 but the innings folded swiftly thereafter with Mitchell Starc finishing as the leading wicket-taker in the innings with three for 65.
“We can only ask the questions,” was Starc’s deadpan reply to his opinion on the dismissals of Chase and Hope.
“That’s what we have the technology for. The questions have to be asked in that direction, not at the players.”
On the state of the match, Starc felt the nature of the pitch is keeping the contest close.
“Throughout the two days it’s shown that if you bowl in the right areas there are enough chances ,” he said.
“Even when the ball got older or was changed it still did some sideways stuff so the bowlers have been in the game throughout so far and that is likely to continue tomorrow.”
 

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida: The first astronauts in more than 40 years from India, Poland and Hungary arrived at the International Space Station on Thursday, ferried there by SpaceX on a private flight.
The crew of four will spend two weeks at the orbiting lab, performing dozens of experiments. They launched Wednesday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.
America’s most experienced astronaut, Peggy Whitson, is the commander of the visiting crew. She works for Axiom Space, the Houston company that arranged the chartered flight.
Besides Whitson, the crew includes India’s Shubhanshu Shukla, a pilot in the Indian Air Force; Hungary’s Tibor Kapu, a mechanical engineer; and Poland’s Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski, a radiation expert and one of the European Space Agency’s project astronauts on temporary flight duty.
No one has ever visited the International Space Station from those countries before. The time anyone rocketed into orbit from those countries was in the late 1970s and 1980s, traveling with the Soviets.
Speaking in both English and their native languages, the new arrivals shared hugs and handshakes with the space station’s seven full-time residents, celebrating with drink pouches sipped through straws. Six nations were represented: four from the US, three from Russia and one each from Japan, India, Poland and Hungary.
“We have so many countries at the same time on the space station,” Kapu said, adding that seven of the 11 astronauts are first-time space fliers “which also tells me how much space is expanding.”
Added Uznanski-Wisniewski: “We will all try to do the best representing our countries.” Shukla rated the experience so far as “fantastic ... wonderful.”
The space station’s commander, Japan’s Takuya Onishi, said he was happy to finally see their smiling faces after “waiting for you guys so long.” Whitson also made note of the lengthy delay and preflight quarantine.
To stay healthy, the four newcomers went into quarantine on May 25, stuck in it as their launch kept getting delayed. The latest postponement was for space station leak monitoring, NASA wanted to make sure everything was safe following repairs to a longtime leak on the Russian side of the outpost.
It’s the fourth Axiom-sponsored flight to the space station since 2022. The company is one of several that are developing their own space stations due to launch in the coming years. NASA plans to abandon the International Space Station in 2030 after more than three decades of operation, and is encouraging private ventures to replace it.