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Australia wipe out Windies in Hobart

Hosts romp to an innings victory as Pattinson celebrates recall with five-wicket haul

Of the bevy of records to tumble during Australia's ruthlessly one-side victory sealed in Hobart today, perhaps the most worryingly significant was the one that served as the truncated Test's full point.

When West Indies opener Kraigg Brathwaite was bowled within one mighty blow of a deserved, defiant century to close out Australia's victory by an innings and 212 runs.

WATCH: Electric Pattinson destroys Windies

The second-biggest win that Australia has forged over the once mighty, previously proud collective of Caribbean nations since the very first series between rivals now treading disparate paths in world cricket.

Apart from the fact it took a couple of days longer to reach its inevitable conclusion (including the then obligatory rest day), the game that yielded that widest margin between the teams when played at the Brisbane Exhibition Ground in January 1931 bore some similarities to that which finished at 2.35pm this afternoon.

Almost three hours before the scheduled time for stumps on day three.

Back then, Australia's win by an innings and 217 runs was set up by the batting dominance of Don Bradman (223) and Bill Ponsford (108), with their roles reprised with added volubility by Adam Voges (269no) and Shaun Marsh (182) in the contemporary version.

WATCH: Highlights of Bravo's defiant century

And while the wickets were shared by spinner Clarrie Grimmett (9-144) and local Queensland seamer Ron Oxenham (6-76) in just the second Test match staged in Brisbane, across Bass Strait the lion's share of wickets fell to pace pair Josh Hazlewood (7-78) and James Pattinson (5-27 today after going wicketless in the first innings).

Who between them accounted for seven of the eight wickets that tumbled for a paltry 51 runs in less than 20 overs in this morning's session that saw the tame end to the West Indies first innings followed by an even limper start to their second after they were forced to follow-on 360 runs behind.

But the glaring difference between that Test that was the last played at the Exhibition Ground before cricket moved to its current Queensland home at the Gabba and this week's at Blundstone Arena – a venue with its own clouded Test future – was that back then the West Indies could look forward with promise.

Given they were just 10 matches into their Test cricket tenure and had lost four of their previous nine matches by an innings, they were clearly a team learning their trade and already boasted at least one genuine superstar in their midst – George Headley, who became known as 'the Black Bradman'.

Not only is there an absence of any such supernova in the current incarnation of the West Indies line-up, after 20 years of inexorable decline in the strength and substance of top-level cricket in the Caribbean even the most committed and loyal of their fans now accept that the best years have gone.

WATCH: DRS ruling stumps players, pundits

There will doubtless be flashes of fight, such as last May's stirring five-wicket win over England in Barbados, but there will be many more days like today when the intent and intimidation of a superior opponent simply overwhelms them.

And while it will rankle the Australians that their classy, clinical demolition of the West Indies from the opening over of a Test match they dominated utterly that the focus has fixed squarely on the losers, it is difficult to altogether blame the messengers.

The dual batting feats of Voges and Marsh have been afforded due celebration, the bowling of Nathan Lyon on Friday afternoon when he snared three vital wickets in quick succession to begin the procession that followed was highlighted at the time.

But while Pattinson bowled with pace and purpose today having found his first day back in Test cricket after 21 months away a labour as his rhythm eluded him, there was but a handful of wickets among the 12 that fell in less than two sessions today that were attributable directly to the bowlers.

And given the resolve shown by many of his top-order peers, it's doubtful that giant quick Shannon Gabriel would have provided significant obstruction had the "stress reaction to the bone" in his left ankle allowed him to bat in either of his team's two innings completed today.

Marlon Samuels can lay some claim to getting a snorter, with Pattinson showing the visitors that there was little to fear when bowling up the hill, into the wind from the Derwent River end by extracting sufficient bounce to catch Samuels by surprise and the handle of bat in futile defiance.

Jermaine Blackwood could therefore be excused for expecting the next delivery he received from the reborn Victorian paceman might fly with similar venom, only to have it stay down, sneak past his apologetically offered bat and smash into off stump to complete his forgettable pair of ducks.

Other than those, there was a sense of resignation about the others to fall as the Australians warmed themselves in the chill breeze by gathering in a celebratory huddle every few overs.

The rout began when Kemar Roach's obdurate occupation of the previous evening ended in a loose flash against Hazlewood and then his new-ball (and equally wicketless for the Test) partner Jerome Taylor squeezed the very next delivery in to the base of his stumps.

WATCH: Hazlewood snares two in two

Those dual dismissals came the over after Darren Bravo had provided one of only two batting highlights in the tourists’ inadequate stints at the crease, scoring the eight runs he needed to complete a mature century before finishing the first innings as last man dismissed for 108.

He didn’t even have time to remove his pads as he re-entered the arena following the 10-minute change of innings and the five minutes it took for the West Indies to lose their opening wicket, which set Pattinson off on a fierce celebration that grew with every subsequent victim.

That Bravo was unable to repeat his first innings heroics, dragging an airy drive back on to his stumps for just four, signalled that any thoughts of fight taking the Test into the second day of the weekend were spurious.

It was left to Brathwaite to play the lone defiant hand, watching with quiet equanimity as Pattinson cut a swathe and Hazlewood – as if publicly scoffing at suggestions he will need to be rested from one of the remaining two Tests – notched his 50th wicket for the calendar year.

In fact, rather than volunteering to have a break there will be batsmen and bowlers the length and breadth of Australia scrambling to have a crack at the tourists who are but a shadow of the West Indies past but a sobering portent of those that may follow.