Tony Fras­er

In Bar­ba­dos re­cent­ly I was lis­ten­ing to for­mer man­ag­er of the West In­dies crick­et team Ricky Sker­ritt and Guyanese jour­nal­ist Clive Bac­chus talk about the state of WI crick­et and I had to ad­mit to them that I knew not what to con­tribute to the con­ver­sa­tion.

It was a po­si­tion sim­i­lar to that reached the week be­fore in Trinidad by an­oth­er crick­et fa­nat­ic from the land and era of the 3Ws when I at­tempt­ed to pro­voke a crick­et con­ver­sa­tion in­to ex­is­tence. The gen­tle­man, with a deep knowl­edge of and pas­sion for West In­dies crick­et, said to the ef­fect that he nev­er thought it would have come to a pass where he would not be in­ter­est­ed in talk­ing about or watch­ing our crick­et and crick­eters. We nev­er­the­less talked about the woes of our crick­et, the low skills lev­els of our play­ers and the non-un­der­stand­ing by the mod­ern play­er (ex­cept for a few) of the vi­tal sig­nif­i­cance of the game to the West In­di­an na­tion and per­son­al­i­ty. At the end of the con­ver­sa­tion we were more de­pressed than when we start­ed, hence the rea­son why the week af­ter I felt drained and un­able to re­spond to Sker­ritt and Bac­chus.

Fact is I men­tal­ly un­der­stood (due to my state of dis­tress with WI crick­et) lit­tle that was be­ing said dur­ing that con­ver­sa­tion. But notwith­stand­ing my state of numb­ness, some­thing needs to be said with the team go­ing off to Sri Lan­ka to play a three-Test se­ries and a num­ber of games in the short­er va­ri­ety of mod­ern crick­et. First, it should be not­ed that a num­ber of sig­nif­i­cant changes have been made to the team, none larg­er than the ap­point­ment of Dar­ren Sam­my as cap­tain with the Aus­tralian-born, Ja­maican-bred Bren­dan Nash as his vice-cap­tain. But even be­fore as­sess­ing the mer­its and de­mer­its of the team and the changes made, the ex­pec­ta­tion must be, what­ev­er our sen­ti­ments and hopes, that Sam­my and his men will be thor­ough­ly spanked by a top-class Sri Lankan out­fit which in­cludes world class bats­men such as San­gakkara, Jayawar­dene, Dil­shan and top bowlers in the sling­ing Ma­lin­ga, the un­com­fort­ably fast Fer­nan­do, with the con­fus­ing Herath and Mendis in train.

Those first three bats­men named are amongst the best in the world to­day and the bowl­ing team is a good one even af­ter the re­tire­ment from Test crick­et of Mu­ralitha­ran, one of the two or three great­est spin­ners who ever bowled. Even as I write, the Sri Lankans have lev­elled Aus­tralia in a T/20 game with amaz­ing ease. Sam­my and his men are go­ing to be up against a quite for­mi­da­ble team. But apart from the skills lev­els, there has been lit­tle time for the new-look West In­di­ans to be­gin bond­ing in­to a fight­ing unit to be able to mount a co­her­ent chal­lenge to the Sri Lankans. The home team will have the ad­van­tage of play­ing in fa­mil­iar con­di­tions and be­fore their ador­ing fans. But while win­ning away against the third-ranked in­ter­na­tion­al team in Test crick­et will be an elixir of gi­gan­tic pro­por­tions, what is need­ed in WI crick­et is a ro­bust per­for­mance, filled with char­ac­ter and plain old guts. If even they are beat­en 3-0 by Sri Lan­ka but are able to demon­strate the ca­pac­i­ty for play­ing as a team, putting on qual­i­ty per­for­mances and show­ing pride and com­mit­ment will be an ac­cept­able first step to re­demp­tion: it will set down pos­si­bil­i­ties for the fu­ture re­ju­ve­na­tion for crick­et in the is­lands.

As could be ex­pect­ed, there have been many com­ments on the se­lec­tion of Sam­my to lead while Gayle and Bra­vo have been passed up and Sar­wan and Ramdin have been left out, the for­mer for lack of form and fit­ness and the lat­ter for fail­ing to im­press and be con­sis­tent over a long pe­ri­od with the bat. Al­though Sam­my has strug­gled in the past to hold down a Test spot in the team, he has shown his com­mit­ment to the West In­di­an cause and is one of the play­ers who bleeds when the team is de­feat­ed, whether or not he is on the field. By his ob­vi­ous love for West In­di­an crick­et and his in­tent on giv­ing 200 per cent, he could in­fuse his play­ers with a new spir­it?to give of their best. In Otis Gib­son, Sam­my and Nash have an ex­pe­ri­enced and in­sight­ful coach and along with se­nior play­er Chan­der­paul they could set the ex­am­ple for the oth­ers. Sar­wan's loss is a re­al one and once again this su­per-tal­ent­ed bats­man will have to fight his way back in­to the team and demon­strate that he is se­ri­ous about his place in the WI team. Ke­mar Roach is young and full of speed and po­ten­tial; Bra­vo as a bowler has a knack for tak­ing wick­ets when des­per­ate­ly need­ed, and Sam­my is a per­sis­tent medi­um pac­er who could be un­der­rat­ed and so se­cure a few wick­ets.

But it must be ac­knowl­edged that the team is?pal­pa­bly weak in bowl­ing and will pose few prob­lems for the top class bat­ting com­bi­na­tion. In the case of Sam­my as cap­tain, Gayle and Bra­vo ruled them­selves out of con­tention by re­fus­ing to sign the re­tain­er con­tracts, opt­ing in­stead for the far more lu­cra­tive IPL team en­gage­ments. This col­umn pre­dict­ed some time ago that the T/20 quick­ies and big bucks will be de­struc­tive to the West In­di­an cause as our play­ers would be eas­i­ly at­tract­ed by the dol­lars on of­fer in sums com­plete­ly un­known to them play­ing for the WI. In the cir­cum­stances, there­fore, if Sam­my's nat­ur­al com­mit­ment, pride and de­sire for a WI crick­et re­nais­sance are en­cour­aged and chan­nelled in the right di­rec­tion, the team could be­gin to pick it­self off the ground. The West In­dies does not at the mo­ment have the daz­zling bril­liance of the past. The need there­fore is to work with the play­ers and the ca­pac­i­ty that ex­ists to re­store pride and to teach play­ers how to fight and be tough. Such val­ues and dis­po­si­tions are the most im­por­tant in this pe­ri­od of re­con­struc­tion. The Sri Lankan tour must be con­ceived of in those terms: a time of re­build­ing, a time of in­cul­ca­tion of old val­ues, and a time of nur­tur­ing of young minds to a new crick­et eth­ic.