Col­in Croft

Last week, I was at the Queen's Park Oval in Port-of-Spain, to see the end of T&T's Four-day match against Lee­ward Is­lands, and to have a short meet­ing with Dr Nigel Ca­ma­cho, one of the head hon­chos of the new West In­dies Re­tired Play­ers' Foun­da­tion (WIRPF), an­oth­er man I had nev­er met be­fore said some­thing es­pe­cial­ly pro­found.All would prob­a­bly re­mem­ber that it was al­so Dr Ca­ma­cho, a tremen­dous­ly tal­ent­ed in­di­vid­ual who some­times runs marathons, and is al­so my fam­i­ly's den­tist, who was one of the orig­i­nal guys who put to­geth­er the first ful­ly fea­si­ble trav­el­ling sup­port­ers club of West In­dies crick­et –"The Tri­ni Posse!"

Our meet­ing went very well in­deed and more would be avail­able about this new ven­ture for all past West In­dies crick­eters in the near fu­ture. I sin­cere­ly hope to be ful­ly in­volved in WIRPF.

But what al­so fo­cused me af­ter­wards was what the stranger, neck tie loose, just hav­ing a re­lax­ing late af­ter­noon aper­i­tif, shout­ed to us: "Hey guys, I am sure that you know that if all West In­dies play­ers now at ICC World T20 in Bangladesh play to their full po­ten­tial, West In­dies can­not lose at all in this tour­na­ment!"

Para­phras­ing that would mean that West In­dies would suc­cess­ful­ly de­fend its World T20 ti­tle.Truth­ful­ly, pound for pound, that stranger was ab­solute­ly cor­rect. If WI team re­al­ly plays as it can, play­ers hav­ing ma­tured in the last two years since win­ning in 2012, then they re­al­ly should not lose.To­day, West In­dies starts that de­fense against a team, In­dia, which has al­ready shown that they too, mean re­al se­ri­ous busi­ness. In­dia's ut­ter stran­gu­la­tion of Pak­istan in their Group one en­counter, the same group that al­so con­tains Aus­tralia and Bangladesh, was like the Web of spi­ders, or spin­ners, weav­ing traps that en­tan­gle bats­men.

"In­dia's spin­ners set up facile vic­to­ry", screamed the head­line on ES­P­N­cricin­fo. Pak­istan nev­er emerged from the silky en­trap­ments spun by In­dia's spin­ners, the 2009 World T20 cham­pi­ons on­ly man­ag­ing 130 in their 20 overs, a run-per-over av­er­age of on­ly 6.5, al­ways way be­low par for In­dia's bat­ting might.How WI cope with "Man of Match" Amit Mis­ra, bowl­ing right arm leg-breaks, googlies, slid­ers and top-spin­ners, and whose 4-0-22-2 ver­sus Pak­istan in­clud­ed one very ex­pen­sive over that cost 13 runs, will be seen to­day, al­so ex­pos­ing how adept present WI play­ers re­al­ly are to good spin bowl­ing.Ma­hen­dra Singh Dhoni, cap­tain­ing the win­ners of ICC's in­au­gur­al T20 world com­pe­ti­tion 2007, has sev­er­al weavers in his ar­mory. Very much con­cen­tra­tion would be nec­es­sary for WI to over­come them.

Left arm or­tho­dox spin­ner Ravin­dra Jade­ja was even more fru­gal against Pak­istan, 4-0-18-1, show­ing that as ex­pect­ed spin will def­i­nite­ly play its main part for whichev­er team hopes to win this year's com­pe­ti­tion.Com­pound­ing that smoth­er­ing Web for In­dia, tall off-spin­ner Ravichan­dran Ash­win, open­ing the bowl­ing ver­sus Pak­istan, al­so de­liv­ered snarling strings with his im­pres­sive ad­he­sives, 4-0-23-0, re­al­ly tight, sticky stuff!In­cred­i­bly, In­dia's main spin­ners de­liv­ered 12-0-63-3, ef­fec­tive­ly snuff­ing out Pak­istan's bat­ting life.West In­dies are ex­treme­ly sim­i­lar to Pak­istan. Both teams play such mer­cu­r­ial crick­et, ma­jes­ti­cal­ly mag­nif­i­cent now, de­press­ing­ly de­fi­cient then. Which West In­dies team turns up is the big ques­tion.No Pak­istani played to his full po­ten­tial. On­ly Umar Ak­mal, 33 from 30 de­liv­er­ies, looked close enough. Shoaib Ma­lik, Shahid Afri­di and cap­tain Mo­ham­mad Hafeez all looked woe­ful­ly en­snarled in­to In­dia's Web.WI bat­ting line up to­day, down to wick­et-keep­er De­nesh Ramdin and cap­tain Dar­ren Sam­my, should read Chris Gayle, Dwayne Smith, Mar­lon Samuels, Lendl Sim­mons, Dwayne Bra­vo, all in­ter­change­able, per­haps An­dre Rus­sell, Ravi Ram­paul, Sunil Nar­ine and Samuel Badree as bowlers.

To date, WI main bats­men re­turns are as fol­lows: Gayle 37 T20I's; 1096 runs; avg. 33.21; strike rate 140. Smith 22 T20I's; 398 runs; avg. 18.09; s/r 133.55. Samuels 30 T20I's; 748 runs; avg. 31.16; s/r 129.18. Sim­mons 25 T20I's 587 runs; avg. 26.68; s/r 113.53. Bra­vo 44 T20I's; 803 runs; avg.26.76; s/r 115.37. Ramdin 41 T20I; 334 runs; avg. 17.57; s/r 125.09. Sam­my 47 T20I; 362 runs; avg. 13.92; s/r 136.09. Rus­sell 22 T20I's; 140 runs; avg. 12.72; s/r 113.82.Are those num­bers good enough to beat In­dia and its su­perla­tive spin­ners? To­day we will know that!

Read­ing those num­bers, one has to hope that to­day, as a West In­dies sup­port­er, that Gayle strikes the ball ro­bust­ly, Smith mus­cles six­es reg­u­lar­ly, Samuels ca­ress­es de­liv­er­ies smooth­ly, and Ramdin, Sam­my, Sim­mons, Bra­vo and Rus­sell slog the way on­ly they can, to get West In­dies in the vicin­i­ty of 190-200.Al­so, WI has spin­ners of its own, spin­ners who are tru­ly world class too! T&T's spin twins Badree and Nar­ine are con­sid­ered world­wide as high­ly, if in­deed not more so, as Pak­istan's Mo­ham­mad Hafeez or In­dia's Ash­win, Mis­ra and Jade­ja.

So, this first en­counter for West In­dies against In­dia, can be de­scribed, like that old car­toon, as "spin vs spin!"If In­dia win to­day against West In­dies, they are al­most through to the semi­fi­nals. West In­dies must there­fore play to their full po­ten­tial to pick up where they left off in 2012, on that win­ning streak.

En­joy!