Joshua Da Silva is 6th Windies Keeper to score a fifty on debut

Dec 20, 2020 Sports

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– First White WI player since Nash to play Test cricket

By Sean Devers

Kaieteur News – When 22-year-old Trinidadian Joshua Da Silva, made his Test debut against New Zealand in Wellington last week, he became the first Caribbean-born white West Indian to play Test cricket since Barbadian Geoff Greenidge in 1973 and the first white player to represent West Indies since Australian-born Brendan Nash in 2011.
Da Silva is of Portuguese background and his family hails from the Island of Madeira, the birthplace of Football superstar Cristiano Ronaldo and Australian cricketer Moises Henriques.
Da Silva’s mother was born in Canada, as was his grandmother while his father (Michael Da Silva) was born in Trinidad, but his family roots stretch back to the migration of Madeirenses to the Caribbean and North America in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Da Silva also became the sixth West Indies Wicket-Keeper to score a fifty on Test debut and the second youngest to achieve the feat. After replacing Shane Dowrich, who was hit on his face while keeping by Shannon Gabriel, Da Silva made three in the first innings of the second Test and followed it up with an accomplished 57 from 84 balls and 135 minutes with six boundaries, batting at number eight, before he was LBW to Neil Wagner.
The talented young man joined Clifford Mc Watt who was 31 when he scored 54 & 36* against England in Jamaica in 1954, Jackie Hendricks who was 28 when he made 28 & 64 against India in Trinidad in 1962, Ivor Mendonca who was 27 when he scored 78 against India in Jamaica in 1962, Desmond Lewis who was 25 when he made 81* against India at Bourda in 1971 and Denesh Ramdin who was 20 when he scored 56 & 11 against Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka, as West Indies Keepers who scored a fifty on their Test debut. Da Silva and fellow Trinidadian Ramdin were the only ones

to do so outside of the West Indies.
Jeff Dujon and Shane Dowrich made half centuries in their first Test as Wicket-Keepers but both began their Test Careers as specialist batsmen.
Dowrich made his Test debut as a top-order batsman against Australia in June 2015 in Dominica in a West Indies team that was skippered by Wicketkeeper/batsman Dinesh Ramdin. Dowrich, batting at number four, scored 15 in the first innings and 70 in the second. In his first Test match behind the stumps against India in Antigua in 2016, Dowrich contributed an unbeaten 57 at Number eight in the first innings.
Dujon, who has 272 dismissals (the most by a West Indian) and scored the most Test runs by a West Indies Keeper (3,322) with five centuries and 16 fifties from 81 Test matches, made a couple of 40s in his first two Tests playing as batsman against Australia in 1981. He replaced David Murray behind the stumps in his third Test and reached the elusive half century.
Da Silva joined Samuel Guillen (who also played Test Cricket for New Zealand), Deryck Murray, Ralph Legall, David Williams and Ramdin as Trinidadian Test Wicket-Keepers.
Da Silva represented Trinidad & Tobago U-19s, Trinidad & Tobago, St Kitts and Nevis Patriots, West Indies Emerging Players &West Indies. Da Silva also played in England for Old Wimbledonians CC in Surrey as a 17-year-old as a part of the Atlantic/Kieron Pollard scholarship programme.
He made his first-class debut for Trinidad and Tobago in the 2018–19 Regional Four Day Competition on 13 December 2018 and made his List A debut on 7 November 2019 for the West Indies Emerging Team in the 2019–20 Regional Super50 tournament. In January 2020, in the opening round of the 2019–20 West Indies Championship Da Silva scored his maiden century in first-class cricket, with an unbeaten 113.

In June 2020, Da Silva was named as one of eleven reserve players in the West Indies’ Test squad, for their series against England after an impressive 2019-20 domestic season. Da Silva made 507 runs at an Average of 50.7 and replaced Ramdin from the T&T side.
The Test series was originally scheduled to start in May 2020, but was moved back to July 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On the third day of the third Test of the series, Da Silva was used as a substitute wicket-keeper in the match, after Dowrich suffered an on-field injury.
In October 2020, Da Silva was named as one of six reserve players for the West Indies’ Test squad for their series against New Zealand. Ahead of the second Test, Da Silva was added to the squad for the match as a replacement for the injured Dowrich and made his Test debut on 11 December 2020.
In 18 First Class games Da Silva has 932 runs with an unbeaten 113 being his only ton in addition to his six fifties at an Average of 32.13. He effected a stumping and held 29 catches. He has scored 331 runs from 10 fifty-overs games including 103 not out against Windward Islands in the group stage in the Regional Super50 for eventual Champions ‘West Indies Emerging Players’ in Trinidad last year. He has 16 dismissals including a stumping, while in his six T20s his 59 is his only half-century, while he has held three catches behind the stumps for the St Kitts and Nevis Patriots.
Da Silva was born on June 19, 1998 and attended St. Mary’s College in Port-of-Spain and was involved in several sports as teenager. He played cricket and football at School but decided to focus solely on cricket when he was 17 and got selected as a wicketkeeper for the Queen’s Park’s second team. Young Da Silva worked on his skills sets and more importantly, his fitness level under the watchful eyes of coach David Furlonge.
Playing Club Cricket in England, Da Silva made close to a 1,000 at an average of 64.42 with five fifties and two centuries and was good behind the stumps with 19 dismissals. With the confidence gained from the impressive showing in England he scored 600 runs for the Queen’s Park team in the 2017/18 season and ended up making his first-class debut for Trinidad & Tobago in the Regional Four-Day Tournament in the 2018/19 season. After managing only 348 runs at an average of 21.75, he was not selected for T&T for the Regional Super50 competition.
When he got an opportunity to represent the West Indies Emerging team in the Regional Super50, Da Silva scored 310 runs at 44.28 including a match-winning 103* against the Windward Islands to see his team to an upset win over Barbados in the Final.
Da Silva only decided to pursue a cricket career instead of football in 2016. He played just a handful of games for Trinidad at youth level and never made the West Indies Under-19 team and placing a greater emphasis on fitness, Da Silva got into the T&T’s squad for the Regional Four-Day competition in the 2019/20 season. He finished as the leading run-scorer for T&T; scoring his maiden first-class hundred.
On the back of that performance, he was named in the 25-man West Indies squad as one of the reserves for the England Test tour when West Indies and England became the first teams to play an International match during the Covid-19 Pandemic.
But despite the dismal batting performance of the top order in the last two Test matches Da Silva was ignored by the selectors, even after scoring an attractive unbeaten 133 in the practice match and standing as substitute keeper for Shane Dowrich in the final Test.
With Campbell continuing failures in England and in the first Test which West Indies lost by an innings and 34 runs many felt Da Silva had done enough to replace one of the openers since that was a position he batted in First-Class Cricket. It was Dowrich’s injury which provided him with a place in the X1 but only as a Keeper and he had to bat at number eight. However, the right-hander grabbed his opportunity with both hands.
The Trini will want to follow in the footsteps of Dujon but one achievement of the acrobatic Keeper that Da Silva can never match is that the Jamaican never played in a losing series during his entire Test career which lasted from December 1981 to August 1991.

 

 

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