“Known Knowns; Known Unknowns; and Unknown Unknowns about West Indies regional cricket”

Feb 13, 2011 Sports

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Colin E. H. Croft
“There are known knowns.  Then, there are known unknowns.  There are also unknown unknowns!”
No, this is not West Indies Cricket Board explaining our so-called stars being less than stellar, or justifying why England Lions are playing seven; yes folks, seven; 4-days games in the Caribbean, against our 1st Class teams, while each of our 1st Class teams only plays 4 days – one game each – against them.
Only a politician could pronounce such absolute drivel, and expect the normal, relatively well educated person to understand it all.  Maybe those utterances were for absolute, blithering idiots!
It was not even a Caribbean government or minister explaining that someone was not sufficiently qualified, known to be qualified, or even, unknown to be unqualified, for some job or other.
Please stay with me here!
Believe me, when I heard that original quote, at 3:00am one morning last week, on BBC World Service, I had my best laugh for a very long time; at least for 2011.  I laughed so loud and hard that I am sure that my neighbors thought that they knew that I had gone mad!
This, ladies and gentlemen, was an utterance from none other than Donald Rumsfeld, who was both 13th and 21st Secretary of Defense of the United States of America.  He served both Gerald Ford and George Walker Bush, past Presidents of Uncle Sammy!
Donald Rumsfeld’s new book is called “Known and unknown!”
With quotes and thrash like that, it is no wonder that the entire US effort against Saddam Hussein and Iraq went so bloody, and so badly.  Did any of the generals even understand their instructions and orders?  I doubt that very much!
Obviously, the “Sec-Def’ was trying to explain, firstly, that there are things that we know that we know.  Then, of course, there are things that we know that we do not know.  Finally, apparently, there are things that we do not even know that we do not know!  There must be some sense in there somewhere!
I also know that there is one more – There are things we do not know that we actually know!
Whenever you fathom them all out, let me know!  I will stick with what I know that I know!
I am sure that I, at least, know that West Indies regional cricket is perhaps at its lowest ebb for a very long time, perhaps as long as I have been involved in the effort, my input starting way back in 1972!
In Round 1 of WICB 4-day competition, Combined Campuses and Colleges (CCC) beat Windward Islands by 33 runs.  This distressing result occurred mid-way on Day 3 of 4!
As if that was not enough embarrassment, and desperately depressing, England Lions, effectively an England “A” team, beat Leeward Islands by an innings and 120 runs, also well inside three days!
To quote another USA President, George Herbert Bush, “W’s” old man:  “We are in deep doo-doo!”
I know that England & Wales Cricket Board is probably laughing at us.  We have allowed them to send a team here to keep their players in good nick, so that if any of them is needed for the ICC Cricket World Cup – Ravi Bopara has already been called up from here– that player will be in reasonably good shape.
By the time they go back to United Kingdom, the English County Season will have been started.  So the England “A” players will have had the requisite practice to face the opposing counties, or the touring Sri Lankans or Indians, later this year, if they are fortunate enough to be selected for those series.
West Indies cricket have been made “patsies”!  We are just fodder for them!  We have been had!
How in God’s name will this exercise have helped our cricketers I really do not know!  However I am always open to sensible suggestions and counter opinions.  England “A” plays 28 days of cricket here, against all of our cricketers, but our teams each plays only 4 days against them.  How does that help us?
FYI, I have played in many games for Guyana from 1972 to 1984.  Only once can I remember any such game ending in two and a half days – when Barbados beat Guyana by an innings and 140 runs in 1978/9.
There were even excuses, or reasons, that the Guyanese could have used for that defeat.  Those reasons were called Malcolm Marshall, Sylvester Clarke and Joel Garner- all with after-burners on and smoking!
During commentary for Trinidad & Tobago v Barbados, we referred to another game, in 1967, my first year at Central High School, when Guyana played Barbados, at Bourda in Georgetown.
Guyana made 641-5, Barbados 552 – game done!  Now, that was real 1st class batting and competition!
There were nearly 1200 runs in four days, with three centuries for Guyana – Roy Fredericks (127), Rohan Kanhai (144 retired hurt) and Basil Butcher (183).  For Barbados, Peter Lashley (204) and (Sir) Gary Sobers (165) retaliated accordingly.  All of those named had played for West Indies at some time!
I know that if you examine Windward Islands and CCC, there is none, and I mean no player, who is even close to being a selectee for the West Indies cricket team.  Yet the game between them lasted less than three days.  That was simply an exercise in futility; rank mediocrity beating more rank mediocrity!
I know that when neither team can get even 250 runs in any innings, total, in these docile circumstances, we are at a worse place than GHB suggested.  We are like turtles fighting to see who will be the slowest!
England Lions also beat Leeward Islands in three days.  The Lions lost only five wickets in their 1st innings.  This encounter and result were similar to former world heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis, in his hey-day, beating up on Naseem Hamed, former world featherweight champion – expected and useless!
At least the other games, Guyana v Jamaica, and T&T v Barbados, got to the 4th day, with JA beating the Guyanese by 165 runs, after Guyana had led on 1st innings, while T&T gained 1st innings points from Bim in an ill-tempered game.
BTW:  I sincerely hope that WICB throws the entire library, not just the book, at both T&T and Bim.  Their behavior was as poor as it was two years ago, when these same two teams nearly came to blows!
Marlon Samuels, now 30, and much more mature, whom I mentioned in my last article should have been selected for ICC CWC 2011, made a majestic 250 not out for Jamaica, while there were excellent first 1st class centuries for just-turned 18 year old Kraigg Brathwaite (102 not out), for Barbados, and almost-21 years old Kieran Powell (131), for Leeward Islands.
We know that they could all go all the way!
I know that we are all waiting to see what West Indies will do starting next week-end, in ICC CWC 2011.  What we do not know is which West Indies will turn up; those in words, or those in deeds!
I also know that the winner will come from South Africa, Australia, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka or England.
Enjoy!

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