Shamar Joseph

The first time was a surprise, and the second a shock. Five wickets in Adelaide, and seven more in Brisbane, with a badly injured toe, to bowl West Indies to their first Test win in Australia in nearly 27 years. Shamar Joseph did all this in his debut series on the Australia tour of 2023-24.

Former Australia quick Rodney Hogg had labelled the touring West Indians a "weak side", and called them "pathetic" and "hopeless" after their ten-wicket defeat in the first Test in Adelaide. After Joseph's monumental effort at the Gabba, West Indies captain Kraigg Brathwaite flexed his biceps at the post-match presentation, and delivered this riposte to Hogg: "Are these muscles big enough for him?"

A Mitchell Starc yorker had struck Joseph's toe on day three of the pink-ball Test, leaving him in severe pain and looking unlikely to play any part in the remainder of the match. He arrived at the Gabba on the fourth morning expecting only to support his team-mates from the dressing room, but the team doctor worked a miracle on his toe. "I don't know what he did but something worked," Joseph would later say. And how well it worked; he ripped through Australia's batting, taking seven wickets over the course of an epic spell of 11.5 overs broken only by the dinner break.

After the game, Joseph exchanged jerseys with Australia captain Pat Cummins, who said: "As a cricket fan - as a Test-match cricket fan - there's a part of me that was happy to watch".

It had been quite a journey for Joseph, who hails from the remote Guyanese village of Baracara, accessible only by boat. He had only played five first-class matches before his Test debut, but had shown enough evidence of his pace, skill and endurance for West Indies' selectors to fast-track him.

Joseph's career has progressed just as quickly since his Gabba heroics. He earned an IPL contract with Lucknow Super Giants, who signed him for INR 3 crore (USD 358,000) in the 2024 auction, even though he had only played two T20 games at that stage. He only got to play one game that season, but West Indies still picked him in their squad for the T20 World Cup that followed.