“West Indies must be sleep walking in Australia and New Zealand!”

Mar 08, 2015 Features / Columnists, Sports

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Colin E. H. Croft
Do you get the impression that West Indies are sleep-walking in New Zealand and Australia, or just on one big extended holiday, complete with carnival-like street parties?
They were embarrassingly out-thought, especially by India’s faster bowlers and captain, and would have had to dig much deeper, to upset and beat the defending champions.
India always seemed to be cruising, despite mid-innings nerves, while WI stuttered terribly, their decision-making diabolically poor.  Yet, at times in that crucial game, WI were actually ahead!
How in hell could WI lose a relatively low scoring game, by just four wickets, mind you, with more than ten overs still left to be bowled, after India were 134-6 at 29.3 overs, looking for 183?
At that stage, only captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni could have prevented a WI victory.  He did!
Worse, how did front-line bowlers Jason Holder, Jerome Taylor and Kemar Roach still have, between them, seven overs left, while ordinary part-timers Dwayne Smith and Marlon Samuels, eight overs together, were bowling at the end?
WI should have used the better bowlers and gone for broke!
None of those make sense, just rank idiotic planning.  WI must be in another world!
One-day cricket moves quickly, so like flying airplanes, pre-planning, while good, is not set in stone, and must be flexible, ready to change direction at a moment’s notice.
Captain Holder is not fully to blame.  Chris Gayle, Denesh Ramdin and Darren Sammy, senior players and captains all, should take some blame and ought to have helped Holder more.
What about WI’s think-tank in the dressing room?  Where exactly were former WI captains Clive Lloyd and Sir Richie Richardson, one of WI’s best bowlers ever, Sir Curtly Ambrose, and interim batting coach, Stuart Williams, all with substantial experiences, in this debacle?
WI needed to bowl India out, so any helpful message from the dressing room would have helped!
While India would want to keep continuously winning, for nothing brings confidence like ongoing success, their batting has still not fully hit its straps.
Suresh Raina, Shikhar Dhawan and Virat Kohli have been excellent, living up to expectations, but Rohit Sharma, who bats like VVS Laxman, and Dhoni, have struggled for runs.  Last Friday’s innings was Dhoni’s best effort so far.
Yet India is ahead due mainly to its bowlers, who decimated Pakistan, destroyed South Africa, before similarly slicing and dicing WI.
With that loss, WI’s last preliminary game, v United Arab Emirates, is tremendously important and has deathly serious mathematical connotations, if WI are to make quarter-finals.
If WI slip up v UAE, depending on results for the other two teams involved, Pakistan and Ireland, WI could be tied, points-wise, with them, or worse, out of the competition altogether, depending on the two best net run rates.
I actually suggested on ESPN-Cricinfo that Dwayne Smith should have been dropped against India, replaced by Kemar Roach, with Marlon Samuels; my choice; or Lendl Simmons, to open WI’s innings, keeping Suleiman Benn in the final XI.  Yet they kept Smith in!
Even that more bouncy pitch at Perth could not have been seen as being in WI’s favour, as was so often the case in distant olden days, including, ironically, Sir Curtly’s past exploits, since India has consistently better, at least at ICC CWC 2015, new ball bowlers than WI.
When WI were 35-4, over No. 9, Dhoni unbelievably took his team’s feet from WI’s throats, allowing WI an unnecessary breather, or WI could well have made less than 100, especially if India had taken its catches too.  In the end, it really did not matter much.
India’s fast bowling attack has been brilliant, probably underrated too by the world’s batsmen!
Mohammed Shami has led with pace, bounce and wickets, even before that game with WI.  He looks so smooth and purposeful trundling through the bowling crease.
Mohit Sharma and Umesh Yadav have been similarly frugal and productive.
But India’s chief executioner and not-so-secret weapon has been off-spinner Ravichandran Aswin, that perfect foil for India’s fast bowlers, all of whom have improved much this last year.
WI’s biggest concern continues to be its bowling, fast or slow, both sets leaking runs like heavy Caribbean rain!
Before playing India, Jerome Taylor, WI’s premier fast bowler, had only nine wickets in four games, each costing 21 runs per wicket and an atrocious RPO average – economy rate – of 5.6.  He was marginally better against India.
All-rounder Andre Russell, as a bowler, runs more cold than hot, his standard bowling efforts indicating that he has been fooled by someone into believing that he is quicker than he really is, always delivering way too short of length for his pace, proving expensive.
Benn, WI’s No. 1 spinner, was erroneously left out v India, probably because of doubts about his bad back, but it must say something overwhelmingly negative about Nikita Miller’s skill, that an infirmed, similarly-styled bowler can keep a fit Miller out.  What a useless replacement!
WI now has to hope that they do not also cave in against UAE.  Conversely, India looks extremely well equipped to continue its 100% winning record!  Enjoy!
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