What a great story - Shamar Joseph is from Baracara in Guyana, a village so remote you can only access it via a 225km boat trip up the boggy Canje River, and such was its isolation that the village only received mobile phone and internet coverage in 2018, which is still more recently than parts of northern Perth.
Joseph worked full-time as a security guard two years ago, until deciding to pursue a professional cricketing career with Guyana, first playing at Tucber Park and making his first-class debut in February 2023, which was the first time he'd actually used a proper red ball after bowling with things that resembled cricket balls, eventually going to play Carribean Premier League, and had only played 5 first-class games prior to the tour of Australia...
Lo and behold, he gets picked for his Test debut on Wednesday morning in Adelaide, gets his cap from Ian Bishop, hits 36 as a No.11 against Starc, Hazlewood and Cummins, finds himself bowling by the late afternoon...
And first ball, he takes out Steve Smith.
And we won't even mention he got Marnus Labuschagne out hooking to end the day as well.
"I had a few conversations with the boys in the dressing room and told them I'd get a wicket first ball, but I didn't know it was Steve Smith. Getting him, I'll remember it for the rest of my life. I'd love to get a picture and stick it in my house."
Shamar Joseph on claiming Steve Smith
So that makes Joseph the 24th player in the history of Test cricket to take a wicket with their first ball, joining Nathan Lyon in achieving the feat, while he's only the second West Indian to ever achieve the feat, the last being Tyrell Johnson against England at The Oval way back in August 1939, when he had England opener Walter Keeton chop one onto his stumps for a duck...
Unfortunately, it would turn out to be Johnson's only Test appearance, because that Oval test would be the last before the Second World War broke out a few weeks later, and the West Indies wouldn't play another Test until England visited the Carribean in 1948.
In fact, to finish this off, here's a photo of Lyon welcoming Joseph into the First Ball First Wicket Club:
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