“West Indies rebuilding slowly but surely!”

Nov 20, 2011 Sports

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By Colin E. H. Croft

 
Get this straight.  Despite the continued rhetoric, many in West Indies cricket have to admit that the senior West Indies team will never, not in our lifetime, become even close to the on-field excellence that existed during 1970s and 1980s.  The rest of the cricket world would not allow that!
But, this decade, the rebuilding has already started, and has been going fairly well, despite the recent series loss to India, now 2-0, after losing that 2nd Test last week.  The newer players, especially younger batsmen, are doing good work, perhaps waiting for the perfect time for simultaneous maturity.
There is a good chance that in the next five to ten years, West Indies senior men’s team would become less of the cricket punching bag that it had become from 1995 to 2010.  We could hope that the team will even revert to being what it was just before that ‘Golden Era’; 1975 – 1995.

Between 1970 and 1975, West Indies drew more Tests than they either won or lost.  That was due to one fact only – our batsmen then were almost all world class batsmen, or close, though some were fading too.  Some of the bowlers were on their way out too; all very hard to replace at once!
While I believe that any team should start only wanting to win, West Indies must aspire to draw more Tests, if they cannot win outright.    Reality most times outdoes fantasy.  For catharsis’ sake, there must be a wholesale cleansing of the thought of losing.  Draw more games and breathe less heavily!
In 1969, the last series – three Tests – played by West Indies was against England, in England; West Indies losing 2-0.  For that series’ last Test, at Headingley, Leeds, West Indies team was as follows:  Garfield Sobers (captain), Roy Fredericks, Stephen Camacho, Charlie Davis, Basil Butcher, Clive Lloyd, Michael Findlay, John Shepherd, Vanburn Holder, Lance Gibbs and Grayson Shillingford.
In 1971, West Indies played five Tests, against India, here in the Caribbean, losing one and drawing four.  In 1972, West Indies played five Tests, against New Zealand, also in the Caribbean, with all Tests drawn.  In 1973, West Indies played five Tests, against Australia, in the Caribbean, losing two, but drawing three.  West Indies also toured England later in 1973, winning two of the three Tests, drawing the other.
1974, when England toured West Indies, the firmament was starting to coagulate.  West Indies did draw that series 1-1, with three Tests drawn.  Then West Indies went to India in 1974/75, the start of the real revolution, and the implementation too, with Andy Roberts there, of the resolution.
By the time Clive Lloyd’s captaincy era began; tour of India 1974/75, and West Indies just beating the hosts 3-2; that West Indies team was much changed.  Accompanying Lloyd onto the field for Test No. 1 – November 1974; Bangalore – were Roy Fredericks, Gordon Greenidge, Alvin Kallicharran, Viv Richards, Deryck Murray, Keith Boyce, Arthur Barrett, Vanburn Holder, Lance Gibbs and Andy Roberts.
West Indies did manage, immediately afterwards, to win World Cup 1975.  They did fare badly in Australia in 1975-6, losing the six-Test series 5-1, but bounced back to beat England 3-0 in a five-Test series in England, the start of that ‘Golden Era’.  Those earlier learning, drawn, Test matches had helped!
By 1979-80, when West Indies beat Australia; 2-0; for the 1st time ever in Australia, to become world champions, West Indies had been transformed even further, by the advent of overall pace.  That pace attack combined well with the exceptional batting talent, some veterans, some still emerging too, to produce lasting success.  In some ways, this could be partly rekindled in the next few years again!
It had taken Lloyd five years to conjure up that equation, but for Test No. 1 v Australia – Brisbane, December 1979 – the team read:  Gordon Greenidge, Desmond Haynes, Viv Richards, Alvin Kallicharran, Lawrence Rowe, Collis King, Deryck Murray, Andy Roberts, Joel Garner, Michael Holding and Colin Croft.
What West Indies needs right now is a senior team captain who is brave enough to have “out-of-the-box” acuity, like Albert Einstein, to transform this bland façade, to look way beyond the even thinkable.  He must endeavor, sensibly, to rock boats.  Nothing will change if things are repeated over and over!
Darren Sammy has done a fair, holding job as captain, but there would be something fundamentally ill thought out, if he is to be proposed by the powers-that-be to be the captain to take us to that other upward level, for there are so many cricketers that are at his levels of play, some even much better.
The first consideration for any West Indies captain to be successful is to be able to guarantee his place in the team, to gain and hold respect.  Sammy cannot guarantee such, even as selectors continue to ignore superlative efforts by Andre Russell, easily, by some way, the best all-rounder in the Caribbean.
In 2011, West Indies are again at those crossroads.  We have just beaten Bangladesh.  Some might suggest that it was not important.  It was, as that could well have been the start also of another period of learning not to lose, even if they could not always probably win.  Nothing debilitates like losing!
West Indies 2011/12 have now lost to India, as West Indies 1975/6 had lost to Australia back then too.  There are, however, many glimmers of hope for the future, especially for the batting team, even if it will not be as easy as was Clive Lloyd’s transitional period and subsequent all-conquering team.
Extremely disappointingly, nowhere in the Caribbean is there any fast bowler who can be earmarked or compared to fast bowling synchronicity that produced Michael Holding, Andy Roberts, Joel Garner, Colin Croft, Wayne Daniel, Sylvester Clarke, Norbert Phillip, Malcolm Marshall; Lloyd having great options.
Fidel Edwards has done relatively well, Kemar Roach is a worrying, continuing let-down, while Ravi Rampaul and Darren Sammy, fairly competent, will not scare anyone with their medium dobblers!
The present, newer batsmen, on the other hand, compare much more favourably.  Adrian Barath, at 21, and Kraigg Brathwaite, at 19, could be the opening partnership that we have craved for since Greenidge and Fredericks, who were superseded by the even more productive Greenidge and Haynes combination.
Kirk Edwards and Darren Bravo are reminiscent of Rohan Kanhai and Gary Sobers, Lawrence Rowe and Alvin Kallicharran, Kallicharran and Viv, Chris Gayle and Ramnaresh Sarwan, Sarwan and Marlon Samuels, or even Brian Lara and Richie Richardson, as productive pairs.  Kirk Edwards and younger Bravo could be the middle order base that we absolutely need, especially when Shiv Chanderpaul leaves.
Samuels and Shiv have been such revelations recently.  While wicket-keeping and all-rounder berths are presently filled by Carlton Baugh, who has done excellently behind the stumps recently, and Sammy, the competition would come from Denesh Ramdin, recently named a Trinidad & Tobago’s senior team captain, and Russell.  Only Devendra Bishoo, for spinners, could continue, as no-one else has shown.
This road is neither for the swift or the timid, and the transition has been long, tedious, even tiring, but it does seem to be taking shape; slowly!  Enjoy!

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