OPINION
Follow UsAlex Carey became popular on social media even before a ball was bowled in the Karachi Test. Apart from a cluster of fans questioning his credentials as Australia’s Test wicketkeeper, there is a video of him descending into the pool at the team hotel. Talking to his mates behind him, Carey walked into the pool wearing shoes and his backpack laden on his back. It is hilarious and has aptly gone viral on various social media platforms.
Not only that, Karachi’s tongue-in-cheek humour translated on a crowd banner, reminding people to ‘watch their step’ at the expense of Carey. "I've always wanted to have signs in the crowd to have my name on them but probably didn't expect it would be about falling in a pool," he said after the day’s play.
On Day 2 of the Karachi Test, for the first time, Carey became the talk of the town for the right reasons as a Test cricketer. He walked out to bat with Australia’s Plan A under a spot of bother.
Pakistan were threatening to change things with a restrained show in the afternoon session. Between the wickets of Nathan Lyon and Usman Khawaja, they snaffled three wickets for only 56 runs in 25 overs. The runs were not coming for Australia with only four wickets in hand and most importantly, their guiding light in the innings, Khawaja was back in the hut for a top-notch 160. Within an hour, Cameron Green headed back after a 45-run stand.
For the first time in this innings, Pakistan were at top of Australia. It was clear that Australia wanted to score over 500 so they have to bat only once on a pitch they are expecting to deteriorate. After Green’s departure, it appeared they will have to switch to a Plan B which looked a lot like settling for a 450-ish score as Pakistan did in the previous Test (476).
The situation demanded Carey to dig in and the left-hander cashed in to prove his worth in the side. "The more runs we can get in this first innings, obviously it sets us up at the back-end,” he confirmed the plan.
Given his love to sweep, it was a tailor-made situation for Carey to bat, and bat, and bat. He is one of the most prominent players of the sweep shots in modern-day cricket. In fact, his first scoring shot was a paddle sweep through fine leg for two. A few moments later, Robert Key, on-air picked up his love for sweep strokes, associating it with how it comes naturally to wicketkeepers. On a pitch where the ball kept low on many occasions, it was almost a necessary weapon to succeed on the pitch.
Carey showcased his whole range of sweep strokes. He swept, he slog swept for six, he paddled, he played the lap.
"Having the ability to sweep spin is probably going to be handy," said Carey. "I do that in Australia on reasonably flat wickets and I'll continue to do that.”
Overall, 39 off his 75 runs against spin today came with one knee on the ground. That is more than half of his runs. At the same time, his shots down the ground were second to none.
*the strike-rate is a reflection of the scoring shots
His busy nature also kept the scoreboard ticking. He found an able ally in Mitchell Starc. The two, inch by inch, nibbled Australia towards their goal. It took the visitors 199 balls to move from 400 to 500 but Carey’s time out in the middle put Australia back on to their Plan A.
This isn’t the first time the South Australian has kept his national team on course. In his debut Test innings, Carey absorbed the pressure at a crucial juncture. Walking out at 195/5, after a similar kind of an unexpected flurry of wickets, he absorbed the pressure to add 41 runs with Travis Head in the Brisbane Test against England a few months ago. However, he himself scored only 12 before chipping the ball to the short midwicket fielder. But those 12 runs held more significance than the number suggests, allowing Head to kick on and score a big hundred.
In the second innings of the same Test, he agreed to open when David Warner had suffered a blow. In a paltry run chase of 20, he was out for 9. Thus, despite fulfilling his duties, his average lingered at 10.5 after his Test debut. In Hobart, he scored 24 and 49. The latter came in an innings of 155 all out.
In Brisbane, he had leveled the record for most catches by an Australian wicketkeeper on Test debut. But a few slip-ups behind the wickets in the subsequent games rose questions if he belongs to this level.
"I have full trust in my ability,” Carey said after the play. “I went away from there with some learnings and take outs. I feel like over the last couple of years I've been pretty consistent in red-ball cricket, the last dozen games in first-class haven't been my strongest but still feel really good out in the middle."
It seemed Carey will put his doubters to bed with a well-compiled century. However, he perished the way he had lived but with a stroke of bad luck. On 93, he went for his 26th sweep stroke of the innings. However, the ball kept so low, it went underneath his bat swing to crash into his stumps. By then, he had ticked the first box in Australia’s checklist of getting to a 500-plus score. On the other hand, getting out on 93 to Babar Azam is probably worse than falling into a swimming pool.
"I'm always disappointed when I get out. So close but unfortunately that's the way it goes," said the 30-year old. “But when I came back into the rooms there were eight other blokes saying they would have played the same shot.”
