Kavem Hodge, 31, became the first West Indies batter to score a Test century in England since Shai Hope in 2017. His maiden hundred on the second day of the Trent Bridge Test bought West Indies back in the game.
Long yards in the domestic circuit
A middle-order batter and a left-arm spinner, Hodge was part of the West Indies team in the 2012 Under-19 World Cup, the same batch as the likes of Kraigg Brathwaite, Akeal Hosein, Kyle Mayers, among others. That year, he made his first-class debut for the Windward Islands against the Leeward Islands in the 2011-12 Regional Four Day Competition. He had a disappointing outing, as he fell for a run after making a duck in the first innings.
In the 2013-14 season, he played five matches for the Combined Campuses and Colleges Cricket Team on the virtue of pursuing an undergraduate degree in Kinesiology from the University of West Indies before returning to his first team from the next year onwards.
After years of struggle, Hodge showed some signs of consistency in the format between 2017 and 2020, where he scored 1470 runs at an average of 39.35, including his best-ever year in 2017-18, which saw him pile on 535 runs at 53.50. The hard work didn't go unnoticed as he earned his maiden Test call-up in the 2021 West Indies tour of Bangladesh but didn’t get a game in the series.
He played a crucial role – 387 at 38.70 and five wickets – in the Winward Islands’ runners-up finish in the 2023 West Indies Championship. However, the performances that shot him to fame came in the Super50 Cup in the 2018-19 and 2019-20 seasons, where he finished as the highest-scorer for his team on both occasions.
While Hodge scored 179 runs at an average of 35.80 in 2018-19, he upped his game several notches in the next, finishing as the tenth-leading run-scorer (341 runs at 48.71) of the season. Another consistent List A season in 2022-23 brought him in the national selectors' radar yet again. He made his ODI debut against the United Arab Emirates in 2023 and has represented the West Indies in four matches since then.
Historic Test debut
Hodge was among the seven uncapped players that toured Australia for a Test series earlier this year. His Test recall came after finishing as the second highest-run scorer (179 at 29.83) for West Indies A during their South Africa tour following a domestic return of 387 at 38.78, where he batted five-and-a-half hours and scored 137 in a 246-run stand with Alick Athanzne.
His Test debut finally arrived and he immediately made his presence felt with a 71 and 29 in his side's historic victory against Australia in Gabba.
Returning to domestic cricket, he continued capitalising on the rich form, racking up a career-best 158 not out in February. Bowling-wise, his career-best 6-68 dates back to 2019 against Trinidad and Tobago.
Hodge’s methods or overall career numbers are not eye-catching at first glance, but he gets the job done, something former West Indies quick Ian Bishop noted.
"He bowls, I'd say, left-arm darts," Bishop said to Espncricinfo. "It's not filled with great variation but he can bat like four or five in the order and he's been a workmanlike sort of cricketer around the regional circuit since his Under-19 days. He's not a spectacular looking player, but a very practical player."
A Trent Bridge masterclass: First ton in a West Indies shirt
Playing the fourth Test of his career with a series on the line, Hodge scored a 171-ball 120 against England at Trent Bridge, his first in a West Indies shirt. He put his proficient backfoot play to good use on a day when Mark Wood bowled a record-breaking hair-raising spell. The innings helped West Indies roar back into the game as they finished day two on 351-5 after bowling out the hosts for 416 in the first innings.
The sensational knock helped him become the second Dominican batter to score a Test century.
A maiden Test hundred from Kavem Hodge at Trent Bridge has kept West Indies alive in the series. 💪
— Wisden (@WisdenCricket) July 19, 2024
Follow the match live here: https://t.co/9ndBcyJHmW | #ENGvWI pic.twitter.com/vI9cQeUb2V
As much as it is a vindication of Hodge's years of toil in the domestic circuit, this knock is also of immense significance to the potential revival of West Indies Test cricket, who have been struggling on the batting front significantly, something their skipper Brathwaite admitted ahead of the Test. "It's pretty simple what we've got to do - we've got to bat a lot better," he said.
Already 31, Hodge might not be a long-term solution for West Indies' Test batting woes, but even if he can be a short-term one, they'd take it with both hands.
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