Modern sport reporting casually reaches for words like “brutality” and “carnage” where their usage even as metaphor is overblown. The end of the third Test in Kingston, though, warranted both. Australia’s fast bowlers destroyed West Indies for 27, a single run higher than the lowest innings score in Test history.
The batting lasted 14.3 overs, the third-shortest innings on record. Mitchell Starc, curling the pink Dukes ball, took 6 for 9. Scott Boland’s 3 for 2 came in the form of a hat-trick. It was a sporting annihilation, the lowest West Indies total ever by 20 runs, worse than any time during the struggles of their earliest years or their recent decades. Australia swept the series 3-0.
