Like limbo – how low can WI test team go – K. B. O.!

Jul 17, 2025 Sports

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By Colin Croft – Former Guyana, Lancashire CCC & West Indies International Cricketer

Kaieteur Sports – Do not kill the messenger. It is not my fault that some West Indies Test players are garbage. My warning that WI would suffer serious defacement during WI v Australia 3-Test series went unheeded. Most present WI Test cricketers are simply not up to Test-playing standards!

How did WI cricket get here? More especially: What happens next?

It is highly rumored – I heard this in UK last month – that ICC has included a very important item for its soon upcoming meeting’s agenda, to especially consider the continued viability of WI team’s inclusion in World Test Championships.

All out 27 in 14.3 overs? We would have been ashamed of that even on Unity-Lancaster beach. With such performances, what do you expect? Embarrassing is not the right word!

WI could become, perhaps there already, like Zimbabwe – “cricket fodder” – for superior Test teams in practice series. Vastly improved Afghanistan can easily replace WI in WTC.

FORMER WI TEST CAPTAINS – HELP – MAYBE!!

Where are Sir Clive Lloyd, Brian Lara, Sir Vivian Richards, Courtney Walsh, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Jimmy Adams, Carl Hooper, Darren Ganga and Shiv Chanderpaul, all past WI Test captains, in this melee? No cheer-leaders allowed. Do something else useful!

Why do they not just form their (our?) own, breakaway “Test Captains Committee”, to save WI cricket from eating itself to death. They know what Test cricket is about. Most politicians and business folks have absolutely no clue about playing professional sport.

Are some former WI captains already compromised, having sold souls and blood allegiances to politicians and other entities, ala jailed R. Allen Stanford’s time, to be thusly functional?

Just asking for I do not know!

WALT DISNEY’S UNBELIEVABLE WORLD

Anyway, as an aside, whenever I take that short, scenic 35 miles (56 km) drive from my home to WDW, for sight-seeing evenings, I always think aloud: “What if Walt Elias Disney (December 05, 1901 – December 15, 1966), were to come back now, and to see what he had helped create – 50 square miles of 1965 imaginative plans – of magnificently computerized shows, stunning animated attractions, miniaturized cities, spaghetti-like roadways, hotels of all levels, countless car-rental firms, futuristic innovations in aviation & aeronautics, world-renowned automobile dealerships, restaurants for all tastes, gas stations galore, convenience stores selling everything, fast-food establishments, spotlessly clean lakes and waterways filled with alligators, manicured lawns, walkways and trails, all around and in WDW’s unbelievable properties? Walt would probably just stop, look, then immediately drop dead (again) from sheer shock!”

Imaginations that Walt saw in swamps from his airplane in 1960s but he never saw in reality, for he died from lung cancer late 1966, have become mega-zillion-dollars industries.

LATE CARIBBEAN JOURNALISTIC DOYENS “TONY B” & “TONY C”

Similarly, what if WI’s late cricketing friends – “The Two Tony’s” – Winston Anthony Lloyd Cozier, (10 July 1940 – 11 May 2016), better known as “Tony” Cozier, Barbadian doyen of Caribbean cricket broadcasters, and his compadre, Lascelles Anthony Becca (10 November 1940 – 28 February 2019), better known as “Tony” Becca, Jamaican doyen of Caribbean cricket writers – were to also return now? Unlike shy Walt, “Tony C” and “Tony B” would, unapologetically, lambast WI’s Test team’s latest ineptitude at revered Sabina Park.

Many times, in my involvement in Sports Journalism since 1994, I had to try to “cool down” Tony Cozier and Tony Becca, both always seemingly close to bursting blood vessels, with anger and disgust, as to how low Caribbean cricket had become.

Once, I really thought that “Tony C” would actually disintegrate. Not just “Blue Vex” but more volatile “Maroon, Black and White Vex!”

March 2004: WI had just been dismantled by England; 47 all out 2nd innings, 25.3 overs; Sabina Park. WI lost that Test by 10 wickets.

Immediately afterwards, most of the WI players, in fancy street clothes and ubiquitous designer shades, were seen partying wildly in “Mound Stand,” enjoying all, apparently oblivious, with no appreciation or comprehension, of the shame just done to WI cricket.

Tony Cozier became apoplectic; totally ballistic. How he did not blow several human fuses, like a real-life dirigible explosion, is still a miracle to those of us who experienced it.

Only God knows how “Tony B” and “Tony C” would have taken Monday 14 July 2025 at Sabina Park, but is that not a conundrum? ‘Crofty” trying to “cool down” the “Two Tonys?”

PLACING BLAME FOR WI MEN’S TEST TEAM’S VERY POOR SHOWINGS?

Firstly, the commentators presently covering WI cricket are partly responsible for the mess of WI cricket. Have you listened to them this last three-Test series v Australia?

They are so scared of losing their jobs that they are no longer doing their jobs. Sycophantic and ass-lickers do not do them justice. Nobody criticizes anymore.

In aviation, whomsoever you are, experienced or newcomer, every six months, flight crew – flight deck and cabin crew – must complete recurrency training, to check competency. Fail twice, you are done. In the military, fail once, you are done. While accidents still do happen, preparedness is paramount.

Commentary for England v India enthralling; Lords 3rd Test; was excellent, with expected biases, but intelligent, understandable explanations, opinions, even jibes, made very enjoyable listening. Those completing commentary at Lords did our industry proud!

Conversely, some WI commentators cannot complete simple English sentences, much less properly transmit what they were seeing. The broadcasts, WI v AUS, were awful!

My sister Gloria, an ardent cricket fan, who taught English Language and English Literature for her full 40-plus years career – Classroom Teacher – with very strict adherence to correct usage of language, culminating as a High School Head-Teacher, probably sheds bitter tears whenever she hears WI’s present commentators shredding the English language apart.

Some Caribbean commentators make such nonsensical, unintelligible noises that even German-made “Babbel Inc” programs cannot decipher what they are trying to say.

Jesus, it was bad. I normally turn off the dribble commentary for WI home games anyway, then look at pictures or computers for scores. I am not nearly as capable as “Babbel Inc.”

Secondly, Cricket West Indies, its President, Chief Executive Officer, and all acolytes, with continuous disingenuous diatribes, always looking for scapegoats, are also at fault for this sewage. They make noises but almost always say nothing substantial.

F. Y. I. Continuous T-20 tournaments cannot prepare anyone for Test cricket. It is the other way around. Longer games, four-day games, can adapt players for shorter efforts.

That is how WI, then the best Test team in the world, won ICC CWC 1975 and 1979. WI were always a brilliant Test team, late 1970s to early 1990s, its most successful span. The players, professional as we all were, adapted those exceptional skills to shorter games.

Instead of promoting cash-cow T-20s, sincere plans – no more studies needed – must now be implemented ASAP for proper regional four-day competitions.

Internally to all territories, three-day club games, and in schools, two-day games should be played, to at least two full innings.

Thirdly, the Caribbean Prime Ministers’ Committee on Cricket is also partly responsible. All personnel on CWI and that PM’s CCC have absolutely no idea as to what it takes to become productive, successful international cricketers. The tail is wagging the dog!

Attending flashy meetings, making useless speeches, gorging on expensive victuals, being advised by supplicant, mostly average former cricketers – ‘Yes Men’ – who do not want to lose their existences, and playing ‘bumper-ball’ cricket on beaches, do not count!

Finally, WI players are mostly at fault for this whole debacle. Did you see the WI batters come out in 2nd innings at Sabina Park? I have never seen an entire Test team look so petrified.

They looked as unprepared for that tremendous Aussie fast bowling assault as startled animals look just before being over-run by fast-moving Boeing B-757s, on take-offs, on my airport, Orlando International; lost, blinded by severely bright lights, about to be dead!

That is the result of Head Coach Darren Sammy’s and Captain Royston Chase’s mummifications. WI present dressing rooms must be like Florida’s Everglades, full of crocodiles, coral snakes and phytons. WI batters in Test No. 3 looked lifeless!

Sabina Park’s resurgence is good for WI cricket. I had hoped that slave ancestors buried under Liguanea Plains, where Sabina Park is located, would be smiling in their graves. They are presently turning; very vexed!

I had hoped that the new, impressive flood lights would work well. They did. I had hoped that WI’s Test team would somehow improve to honor Sabina Park’s history. They did not.

WI made new history; dismissed for the 2nd lowest Test innings score ever; 27!

RESIGN OR K. B. O.

What Darren Sammy and Roston Chase, on the field, and CWI, off the field, have done, is debased Sabina Park’s and WI cricket’s history with an ignominy that none of us will outlive.

All CWI and WI Test team leadership should resign now. Rest assured that will not happen.

Famous former WW-II British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill suggested to then very despondent inhabitants of England after Adolph Hitler’s and Hermann Goering’s barrages:

“We musk KBO – Keep buggering on!”

Expect CWI and WI’s Test team to do exactly that; just KBO!

Enjoy! Cheers!

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• Colin Croft, Tony Becca, Tony Cozier, Walt Disney, West Indies

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