When it rains, it pours and the same was true for Shai Hope on a wretched Monday at the Old Trafford Cricket Ground. The 26-year-old had arrived at the second Test in Manchester under scrutiny over his red-ball failings, and the pressure was only amplified after a cheap dismissal in the first innings.
With West Indies battling to preserve their series lead on the final day at Old Trafford, Hope needed to stand tall after the early dismissal of both their openers. Unfortunately for the right-hander, his stay at the crease lasted just 26 deliveries after he was cut in half from a brute of a delivery by Stuart Broad.
His stumps and confidence shattered, Hope made the forlorn walk back to the pavilion. It could be the last time he made this walk in this series, with his Manchester disappointment the latest in a series of failures in Test cricket.
It wasn’t meant to be this way for Hope, especially after he announced his arrival three years ago with twin tons in Headingley against the same opposition. That magnificent display helped the Windies chase down a stiff target of 322 to level the series. They were set a similar target of 312 on Monday by the hosts, but there was no Hope miracle this time around to bail them out.
That monumental display in Leeds was meant to be the moment that Hope came of age for the West Indies. He was, after all, a batsman who had been touted for big things even as a youngster. Since that Herculean Headingley performance, Hope has certainly gone on to establish himself as a world-beater.
However, his best has only come to the fore in the ODI format while his Test credentials have taken a continuous beating. Disappointingly, the twin centuries in Leeds remain the only times Hope has breached triple figures in the five-day format. His highest score since then in the Windies whites has been a modest 67 and it came against Bangladesh nearly two years ago.
Following the Headingley heroics, Hope has averaged a dismal 23.08 in the Test format with a paltry aggregate of 808 runs in 37 innings. Even more worryingly, he has been bowled 15 times in his 62 Test innings. The mode of dismissal constitutes more than 25 per cent of his Test dismissals and points towards a big chink in his defensive technique.
There has never been any doubt about Hope’s talent and potential as a batsman. After all, he has been flourishing convincingly in the ODI format in the last three years. Since his 2017 Leeds display, the Windies man has averaged more than 57 with the bat in ODIs while helping himself to as many as eight tons.
That only India’s star pairing of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli have registered more runs and centuries than Hope during the same period speaks volumes of his impact in the 50-over format. More than his ODI tally, it is the role that Hope performs for Windies in the format that makes his Test failings all the more surprising.
He loves to hold anchor in the middle for the Caribbean side and his career ODI strike-rate of approximately 74 reflects his patient approach at the crease. With the manner and temperament in which he collects his ODI runs, Hope is really a batsman who should hypothetically revel in Test cricket.
Unfortunately for him and the West Indies, cricket is a funny game and doesn’t always work that way. In the past, aggressive batsmen like Virender Sehwag and Adam Gilchrist have found more joy in the Test format than in white-ball cricket.
Despite the consistency in inconsistency at the Test level, the notion that Hope would eventually come good and rediscover his Headingley form has been perennial. That West Indies are not blessed with plenty of riches in the batting department has only enforced that position.
Time and patience, though, might finally be running out for the team management.
“I am concerned. He has now gone some four innings without a score and in contrast to how he played over the last four months, five, six months in the other formats, I am concerned about his form and we will be sitting down and chatting about that,” Windies head coach Phil Simmons said after the team’s loss in Manchester.
With Shimron Hetmyer opting out of the tour of England, there aren’t many viable candidates to take Hope’s place in the deciding Test. One option for the visitors could be to blood in 22-year-old Joshua Da Silva after the youngster scored a fine 189 in the intra-squad warm-up clash prior to the Test series.
For a batsman who broke into the West Indies squad as a highly-rated youngster, Hope’s pretty ordinary Test career has been delicately held together by those two innings in Headingley three years ago. However, there are only so many chances one can be afforded even in a team as short of batting talent as the West Indies.
Even if he is dropped for the series decider in Manchester, Hope’s ODI form might still earn him a comeback at some point in the future. On the other hand, the pressure to deliver the goods will only be heightened for the Windies man if he is given one more outing to prove his worth.
It has been some unwanted turnaround from a man who couldn’t put a foot wrong at Headingley three years ago, but the memories of that imperious display are fading fast for Hope.
