Col­in Croft

Be­fore we start the post mortem of the last two di­a­bol­i­cal dis­plays from the West In­dies crick­eters, we must re­mind our­selves of the ter­ror­ist at­tack–Crick­et's Dark­est Day, ac­cord­ing to the Aus­tralian Her­ald Sun news­pa­pers – in La­hore, Pak­istan, a year ago last Tues­day, when sev­er­al of the Sri Lankan crick­eters, and the ICC match of­fi­cials, were near­ly killed on their way to the Gad­di­fi Sta­di­um. Two bus dri­vers and six po­lice­men died that day, but the scourge of ter­ror­ism, po­ten­tial or re­al, con­tin­ues to haunt us in­to sports. We can on­ly hope and pray that these sit­u­a­tions do not reap­pear dur­ing the ICC World T-20, here soon. Let us get back to the crick­et so far on this Zim­bab­we tour.

Worse per­for­mance ever

Nev­er was this en­tire re­gion more em­bar­rassed, then even ap­a­thet­ic, than Sun­day last, when Zim­bab­we, who made a mea­ger 105, beat the West In­dies in the on­ly T-20 of this tour, by the whop­ping mar­gin of 26 runs. None of our ra­dio com­men­tary team could be­lieve what we were see­ing. None of the over­seas in­ter­net com­ments could be­lieve it ei­ther. Even the six or so thou­sand hardy, brave souls that at­tend­ed at the Queen's Park Oval were shocked, then con­fused, and then abu­sive, which are nor­mal re­ac­tions to such ter­ri­ble sham­bles.

Even­tu­al­ly, the ap­a­thy stepped in too: "Dem is a re­al­ly spine­less lot." "Duh is why de West In­dies deh at de bot­tom a de ta­ble."

"Dem is wuss than bad!" "Dey just too damn rich; deh doan need no mo' mon­ey!" While I do not know what it is, some­thing is se­ri­ous­ly wrong here.

I have been lis­ten­ing to, play­ing, or cov­er­ing West In­dies crick­et since 1960-61, when, as a sev­en- year-old, I lis­tened, with my fa­ther, to the West In­dies tour of Aus­tralia. I can say, with­out any doubt what­so­ev­er, that the West In­dies ef­fort in that T-20 last Sun­day was in­deed the poor­est that I have ever wit­nessed, and I have seen very much in­deed. I won­der what else must be said or done to con­firm that this team is very poor. It is reach­ing the stage that the ICC should be con­sid­er­ing to re­move our crick­et­ing char­ter, and not too soon, for a lack of brain pow­er, as some of these guys seem not to have any brain at all. Last Thurs­day, Chris Gayle got 57, Adri­an Barath al­so made an ex­act half cen­tu­ry, while the ever re­li­able Shiv Chan­der­paul made 70; 177 be­tween these three, yet the oth­er eight bats­men, in­clud­ing the sup­pos­ed­ly im­proved Dwayne Smith, Nars­ingh De­onar­ine and Kieron Pol­lard, could not get the oth­er 78 re­quired for vic­to­ry.

This is crap crick­et in its low­est grade. If you re­mem­ber, it was I who sug­gest­ed, in 2000/2001, when the team was bowled out for 82 in the first in­nings of the first Test at Bris­bane, against Aus­tralia, to lose that Test, and the se­ries bad­ly, that the West In­dies should have gone home in­stant­ly and start­ed over. I still be­lieve that. Last Sun­day, it was as if the West In­dies had been blind­ed by some very bright truck head­lights, and then stood there just to be hit.

Have you ever seen a bush-mas­ter mes­merise it's pray? No? Then re­fer to Zim­bab­we's spin­ners last week.

Why is WIPA silent on poor per­for­mances

I know that many would, again, as if greet­ing Moses com­ing down from the mount with some edict or strat­e­gy, sug­gest that Ot­tis Gib­son is now here, so all will be well. "Give Ot­tis a chance, man!" We had al­so heard that be­fore too, of Ben­nett King and John Dyson, and oth­ers. Nei­ther of these achieved much at all, so while I will give Gib­son some scope, even some rope, I sin­cere­ly hope that he does not have to hang him­self with it, but will use it to "tan the hides" of our so-called "best" West In­dies rep­re­sen­ta­tives. I am a found­ing mem­ber of the West In­dies Play­ers As­so­ci­a­tion, but where ex­act­ly is WIPA when you need it? Much noise is made by the ex­ec­u­tives when the play­ers do not seem to be get­ting their due. Where is the noise when the play­ers are not giv­ing pa­trons their due?

Do they re­al­ly know that they rep­re­sent us all? Is it re­al­ly okay for pa­trons to be pay­ing good mon­ey to see this con­tin­ued trash? Is this the kind of play and rep­re­sen­ta­tion WIPA thinks that we, the sev­en or so mil­lion of the Caribbean, de­serve? At least, one new­ly-ap­point­ed West In­dies Crick­et Board Di­rec­tor, Bal­dath Mo­hab­ir, had the bel­ly to air, pub­licly, his dis­plea­sure at the per­for­mance. "Pa­thet­ic" he mild­ly de­scribed it. I am sure that he will soon, as one good friend put it, be "po­lit­i­cal­ly cor­rect­ed" that is, be made to un­der­stand that he is not to say any­thing ob­jec­tive, prac­ti­cal, or, God help us, hon­est, about our crick­et team. They all live in fan­ta­sy land. Last Sun­day's crick­et at the Oval was an eye-open­er.

I heard so many cheer lead­ers and out­right liars, peo­ple who have di­rect in­put in­to the West In­dies team, even be­com­ing apoplec­tic as the team was be­ing pil­lo­ried by the crowd. I some­times won­der if these peo­ple look in­to the mir­ror and see some­one else there, so much do they lie to them­selves about our crick­et team. I am sure that no-one, and I mean no-one, ex­pect­ed the Zim­bab­weans to bam­boo­zle the West In­dies so, and with spin too. It was re­al­ly piti­ful.

Blame the Se­lec­tors

I do not know if you know this, but that game last Sun­day was the very last T-20 that the West In­dies will play be­fore the ICC T-20 World Cham­pi­onship in April and May next. Can you be­lieve that! Play­ing the last com­pet­i­tive for­mat game two full months be­fore a com­pe­ti­tion! I am sure that I am go­ing mad, I must be. It is very pos­si­ble that the West In­dies may not even win a sin­gle game in that tour­na­ment. What wor­ries me most­ly is not even the fact or the act of the beat­ing we took. I am more con­cerned that, ex­clud­ing Shiv Chan­der­paul, who is al­ready in his mid-30s, and will prob­a­bly play no more than three more years, and Chris Gayle, who is 31, all of the oth­er play­ers are way un­der 30 years old, the av­er­age age be­ing near­er to 20.

These are the peo­ple who will be rep­re­sent­ing us for the next five or so years in in­ter­na­tion­al crick­et. Maybe I am blind too, but do you see these play­ers be­ing suc­cess­ful against any­body, with or with­out the in­put of Ot­tis Gib­son, or whoso­ev­er comes along? I do not think so. I sup­pose that the peo­ple to blame must be the se­lec­tors: Clyde Butts, Raph­ick Ju­madeen and Robert Haynes. But if they do not pick these sup­posed "best play­ers", then whom do they se­lect? I can­not an­swer that ei­ther, but, hon­est­ly, some of our play­ers sim­ply can­not bat at all. An­dre Fletch­er and Dwayne Smith are both con­firmed "voop­ers" all they do is swipe, then, nor­mal­ly, stay on their one bend­ed knee, pos­ing for the cam­eras, on­ly to ad­mire as the catch is tak­en some­where in the deep. Pa­thet­ic is joke!