Australia will test West Indies' resilience

Sun, May 24, '15

by TONY COZIER

Having begun reasonably well under a new head coach, West Indies' challenge will be to sustain the progress they made in the England Tests

When the Frank Worrell Trophy was last contested, in the Caribbean in 2012, Michael Clarke, with praise rare from an Australian captain, credited West Indies with waging a "really hard-fought" series, adding that he hoped they "get a lot of credit for the way they played".

Australia prevailed in two of the three Tests; the weather precluded a result in the other. That West Indies carried each match into the fifth day was something of an accomplishment for a team that had spectacularly plummeted down the rankings after Mark Taylor's Australians ended their 15 years of Test cricket supremacy with a 2-1 triumph before their stunned devotees in 1995.

A split of the ODIs and the two T20s lent credibility to Clarke's comment and to coach Mickey Arthur's "they went toe-to-toe with us".

The outcome hinted at an overdue revival for West Indies as much as it did a waning of Australia's strength.