Australia vs West Indies in 2022-23

Test matches (2): Australia 2 (24pts), West Indies 0 (0pts)

In the end, the most trouble the Australians had getting their hands on the Frank Worrell Trophy came at the pre-series photoshoot. The groundstaff in Perth needed bolt cutters to open the padlock on the case it had been enclosed in since it had last been contested, in 2015-16; nobody could remember the combination. The cricket that followed did little to disprove the notion that this was a forgotten rivalry.

Two uncompetitive Tests highlighted the vast disparity between the sides. Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne scored more runs than the entire West Indian top seven, while Nathan Lyon took 12 wickets, one fewer than the combined total of the visitors' recognised bowlers, four of whom went down with injuries. And when Marquino Mindley was flown in for the Second Test at Adelaide, he managed only two overs before pinging a hamstring.

Struggling to get 11 on the park, the West Indians put in an emergency call to Melbourne, where the Barbadian Omar Phillips - who had played two Tests 13 years earlier - was in the middle of a season of club cricket. The only shining lights for the visitors were captain Kraigg Brathwaite, who posted a century in Perth, and his new opening partner, Tagenarine Chanderpaul, whose stance was eerily reminiscent of his father, Shivnarine. Caribbean cricket fans will be praying he proves even half as effective.

For Pat Cummins's self-assured team, the biggest obstacles were of their own making. There was more focus on how players would handle the reappearance of the coach they had deposed earlier in the year - Justin Langer, in his new guise as a TV commentator - than how they would handle a side that hadn't won a Test in Australia since 1996-97. Langer, in the lead-up to the first Test in his home city of Perth since before the Covid-19 pandemic, had labelled those who leaked against him as cowards.

Yet he maintained a wide grin as he hugged his former charges before play on the first morning. There was further hoopla on the eve of the pink-ball Test in Adelaide, when David Warner withdrew from - and strongly condemned - a protracted review of the lifetime leadership ban slapped on him after the South African sandpaper scandal. The latest saga proved a distraction for Warner, who failed to join in the run-fest.

The 2-0 scoreline was a repeat of West Indies' previous visit, seven years earlier - though that was a three-Test series. They had not been defeated in five Tests earlier in 2022, but this was a shellacking. It followed their flop in the T20s against Australia six weeks earlier, then the embarrassment of elimination in the first round of the T20 World Cup. Their displays Down Under rang alarm bells about declining standards - not least for Cricket Australia, who were supposed to be hosting West Indies for more Tests early in 2024.