Roach joins elite club as West Indies demolish Sri Lanka inside four days

ST. JOHN’S, An­tigua — Ke­mar Roach etched his name along­side West In­di­an pace roy­al­ty, claim­ing his 300th Test wick­et as a ram­pant re­gion­al pace at­tack blew Sri Lan­ka away for just 101 to seal a mon­u­men­tal in­nings-and-217-run vic­to­ry in­side four days at Sir Vi­vian Richards Sta­di­um in North Sound, An­tigua and Bar­bu­da on Sun­day.

Roach be­came the first West In­dies fast bowler since the leg­endary Curt­ly Am­brose to reach the cov­et­ed mile­stone, strik­ing twice in quick suc­ces­sion af­ter lunch to com­plete a per­son­al tri­umph that sparked deliri­ous scenes among his team­mates.

The 37-year-old now sits be­hind on­ly Court­ney Walsh, Am­brose, and Mal­colm Mar­shall among West In­di­an pace­men in the all-time wick­et charts.

“It’s a spe­cial mo­ment,” Roach said af­ter re­ceiv­ing a com­mem­o­ra­tive No. 300 Test shirt. “To be men­tioned with those names is hum­bling. The boys made it ex­tra spe­cial with how they cel­e­brat­ed.”

The vic­to­ry was or­ches­trat­ed by a pace at­tack that ex­tract­ed far more move­ment from the sur­face than their Sri Lankan coun­ter­parts had man­aged across days two and three.

Roach, Jay­den Seales, Shamar Joseph, and Alzarri Joseph bowled with ven­omous pre­ci­sion, re­duc­ing Sri Lan­ka’s chase to rub­ble in just 27.2 overs on day four.

Sri Lan­ka, vis­i­bly fa­tigued af­ter spend­ing 160.5 overs in the field, of­fered lit­tle re­sis­tance. Di­nesh Chandi­mal was the on­ly bat­ter to show any de­fi­ance, grind­ing out 43 from 60 de­liv­er­ies.

No oth­er mem­ber of the top six reached dou­ble fig­ures as the West In­di­an quicks main­tained re­lent­less pres­sure with im­pec­ca­ble lines.

Roach set the tone in the open­ing over of the day, swing­ing a de­liv­ery in­to Nis­han Madush­ka’s pads. Seales struck im­me­di­ate­ly in his first over, coax­ing an edge from night­watch­man Ka­sun Ra­jitha to the slip cor­don.

Shamar Joseph then de­liv­ered a dou­ble blow, bowl­ing Ka­min­du Mendis as he shoul­dered arms be­fore trap­ping cap­tain Dhanan­jaya de Sil­va lbw.

Alzarri Joseph joined the par­ty late in the ses­sion with a clever vari­a­tion, hav­ing Kusal Mendis leave a de­liv­ery that nipped away be­fore jag­ging the next back in­to the bat­ter’s off stump as he of­fered no shot.

At lunch, Sri Lan­ka were reel­ing at 81 for 6. The end came swift­ly af­ter the break as Roach re­moved both Lahiru Ku­mara and Asitha Fer­nan­do to reach his mile­stone, the lat­ter’s stumps shat­tered by a full de­liv­ery speared in from wide of the crease.

Seales fin­ished the for­mal­i­ties, claim­ing the fi­nal wick­et af­ter some heat­ed ex­changes with the Sri Lankan tailen­ders.

Seales’ 100th-test scalp com­plet­ed a vic­to­ry that was as em­phat­ic as it was un­ex­pect­ed against an op­po­nent many had tipped to com­pete.

(CMC)

Sum­marised Scores

SRI LAN­KA 308 & 101 in 31.2 overs (Di­nesh Chandi­mal 43, Son­al Di­nusha 12 not out, Lahiru Ku­mara, 9 Ka­min­du Mendis 9; Ke­mar Roach 4-51, Jay­den Seales 3-14, Shamar Joseph 2-19)

WEST IN­DIES 626-9 dec’d in 160.5 overs (Amir Jan­goo 233, Ros­ton Chase 194, John Camp­bell 39, Bran­don King 31, Alzarri Joseph 21, Joshua Da Sil­va 20, Shamar Joseph 17 not out, Kavem Hodge 16; Mi­lan Rath­nayake 5-124, Asitha Fer­nan­do 2-56, Son­al Di­nusha 2-234).