“Clive Lloyd was right! West Indies needs some good fast bowlers!”

Nov 24, 2013 Sports

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Says Colin E. H. Croft
What about this resurgence of real faster bowlers, not pretenders, in that real cricket game called “Tests”?
After West Indies had been embarrassingly destroyed by India; Test No. 2, Mumbai; former West Indies captain Clive Lloyd suggested two things; the first was quite funny, the second very poignant.

“West Indies looked drunk on T-20s” suggested Lloyd, which must have brought tears, of laughter or desperate despair, to eyes of those really listening.   Lloyd was not wrong!
For batsmen to be slogging; out caught in the outfield; early in a Test innings, is sacrilege, displaying disregard and misunderstanding of Test cricket itself!
Lloyd, and another West Indian fast bowling legend, Michael Holding, also suggested that West Indies needs real fast bowling fire power, not powder puffs who push out their chests like former Mr. Universe Arnold Schwarzenegger, but unlike Arnold, have nothing behind those chests but vast empty spaces.
Viewing England’s Stuart Broad decimate Australia’s 1st innings for 295; Broad 6-81; reminds us of what good, aggressive fast bowling represents in Test cricket, despite gross misunderstanding of such powerful, purposeful bowling and strange insipid dependence on spin.
Had it not been for veteran wicket-keeper Brad Haddin’s 94 and swinging fast bowler, Mitchell Johnson, reliable at the tail, making 64, the pair putting on 114 for the 7th wicket after Australia had been precariously positioned at 132-6, it could have been worse for the Antipodeans.
Johnson, the bowler, was not done.  He turned the screws on England’s much vaunted batting line-up, destroying them with superlative slinging, swinging left-arm pace that left England battered, confused, panting for breath and hoping for a redemptive miracle!
England was progressing nicely at 82-2 before Johnson, abetted by improved Ryan Harris and probing Peter Siddle, bowling fast and accurately, undermined and destroyed England’s hopes, its last eight 1st innings wickets falling in only 21 overs; for only additional 54 runs.
As George Dobell, ‘Cric-Info – the cricket web-site’ wrote; “It was a familiar tale from shell-shocked England!”
Australia has a substantial lead of over 200 runs at time of writing, with all 2nd innings wickets in hand, so the writing is already on the wall for England.  Even if they dismiss Australia under 300 runs, 2nd innings; very unlikely; England will still have to make about 400 runs to win Test No. 1 at the Gabba!
In Test No. 1 v India; Kolkata; the hosts wobbled at 156-6, 1st innings, after West Indies had meandered to a paltry 234, destroyed by tall marauding new-comer Mohammed Shami, whose fast, swinging deliveries, ala Broad, put paid to any hopes of resistance that West Indies had.

Off-spinner Shane Shillingford got four of those six wickets, with the others going to fast bowlers Tino Best and Sheldon Cottrel, who, like Australia’s Johnson, is also left-handed.
Then everything changed!
Thanks to no fire power whatsoever from debutant Cottrel, and always over-exuberant but very poorly producing Best, and seemingly a very sudden abhorrence to bowling from captain Darren Sammy, who only bowled twelve overs in India’s 1st innings that lasted 129.4 overs, India eventually mustered 453.
Clive Lloyd, who instituted the fabled four-pronged fast bowling attack for West Indies after leading a team which was absolutely destroyed in Australia, 1975-6, by speedsters Dennis Lillee, Jeffrey Thomson, Gary Gilmour and Max Walker, experiencing first-hand what real fast bowler could do, was not wrong!
Had West Indies one, not even three or four, of Ian Bishop, Joel Garner, Curtley Ambrose, even yours truly, any such productive fast bowler, India’s lower order would have been cleaned up.  Of that I am very sure.
Instead, India managed to not only allow its brilliant batting debutant Rohit Sharma  and off-break bowling all-rounder Ravinchandran Aswin to both make centuries, but the Indian lead, 219 runs, was so overpowering that West Indies simply capitulated for 168, thus losing by an innings and 51 runs.
Kemar Roach is injured, but West Indies cricket must be in real dire straight for that fantastically enterprising and exciting art of good fast bowling to be so poorly represented in the Test team, especially with no changes for the series in New Zealand.
They will depend much on the spin of Shillingford, whose action has again been questioned, Marlon Samuels, another spinner with questionable action, according to ICC, and two further spinners Veerasammy Permaul and Narsingh Deonarine, to get New Zealand out six times in three Tests.
But what of West Indies present fast bowlers?
Best has 22 Tests, only 49 wickets, just over two wickets per Test, at the unbelievably poor, nearly 40 runs per Test wicket average.  Shannon Gabriel, who had been injured, and whose early promise seems stagnated, has four Tests, eleven wickets, at 23.18.  Cottrell has one Test; 1-72.
Captain Sammy has 35 Tests, 77 wickets, and like Best, just over two wickets per Test, at an unacceptable 35.66 runs per wicket.  His batting has been below par too, 1189 runs, 21.23 runs per innings.
New Zealand will not be quaking in their boots at that fast bowling attack!
Clive Lloyd was right!  West Indies needs real fast bowlers, now!  Enjoy!

 

 

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