Col­in Croft

Mas­sive con­grat­u­la­tions to Daren Gan­ga, who has been made an am­bas­sador of Sport by the in­com­ing gov­ern­ment of T&T. This al­lows him to rep­re­sent all 1.4 mil­lion of the peo­ple of the twin-is­land re­pub­lic, any­where in the world. How­ev­er, here is a ques­tion. Hav­ing al­ready rep­re­sent­ed the en­tire West In­dies in 48 Tests, 2160 runs, av­er­age 25.71; and 35 ODI's, 843 runs, av­er­age 25.54, is that not some­thing of a de­mo­tion? Oh, you do not have to, as is usu­al­ly the case, curse me. I was just be­ing some­what face­tious. Any award from your coun­try is worth cel­e­brat­ing and that is not a bad award at all. For all of his ser­vices to T&T, the guy de­serves it. I won­der, though, if any­one re­alis­es that while Gan­ga now rep­re­sents on­ly about 20 per­cent of the pop­u­la­tion of the Caribbean, the en­tire West In­dies crick­et team, yes, that same one that is led so list­less­ly by Chris Gayle, rep­re­sents all sev­en and a half mil­lion of us?

Must I be­lieve that we like what we see? How they play? Why is it that no-one seems to com­plain or care? Do not tell me that the fo­cus is on foot­ball now. This fail­ure has been go­ing on end­less­ly. We can­not "like it so!" There must be some changes! Gayle con­tin­ues to sug­gest that "we have to do bet­ter the next game," or "the bats­men let us down," or "the bowlers let us down" etc. These have been Gayle's di­a­tribes for eight los­ing ef­forts in this South African se­ries. Some­thing; I think every­thing; is se­ri­ous­ly wrong with this pic­ture. These peo­ple are sup­posed to rep­re­sent the near­ly eight mil­lions who still live in the Caribbean and sev­er­al more mil­lions in the di­as­po­ra over­seas. I re­al­ly do not know how any­one can take much more of this. As some peo­ple sug­gest­ed, loud­ly, dur­ing the re­cent ICC W-T 20 in Bar­ba­dos, when the West In­dies lost so bad­ly to Sri Lan­ka; "They should be put up against a wall and shot. They are use­less!"

Maybe, we can do what was done by Al Capone, the gang­ster, in Chica­go, USA, cir­ca 1930's, dur­ing the Pro­hi­bi­tion Era. Now, those boys were very se­ri­ous peo­ple! The Saint Valen­tine's Day mas­sacre, Bugsy Moran's North Side gang's de­struc­tion by Capone's South Side gang, was the so­lu­tion to prob­lems then. When they had a prob­lem with any­one giv­ing them strife, for what­ev­er rea­son, they sim­ply rubbed them out. So, any­way, per­haps we could even re­view that First Test. Had I been the sole se­lec­tor, it def­i­nite­ly would have been the last for a few play­ers. How could any­one, the West In­dies Crick­et Board (WICB), the "Three Blind Mice"–se­lec­tors Clyde Butts, Robert Haynes and Raph­ick Ju­madeen–jus­ti­fy that all, re­peat, all, of the play­ers who played so poor­ly in that First Test, can be re­tained for Test num­ber two?

What did they see, that oth­ers who did pay at­ten­tion, did not see? How could the politi­cians, tech­nocrats, sports per­son­al­i­ties and all nor­mal peo­ple just ac­cept this? For those who did not at­tend the match at the Queen's Park Oval in St Clair, for what­ev­er rea­son, be aware that their not at­tend­ing match­es, does not stop these "nin­com­poops" from be­ing our crick­et­ing am­bas­sadors. They still rep­re­sent us, even if we do not see them play. We can­not con­tin­ue to hide be­hind stu­pid shad­ows. Am I to be­lieve that the en­tire Caribbean is so blase, that the West In­dies crick­et team's em­bar­rass­ment does not mat­ter any­more? Some­thing dras­tic has to be done to change this hu­mil­i­a­tion! If Travis Dowl­in is an open­ing bats­man, in­deed any bats­man at Test lev­el, then we could all al­so be­lieve that the DPRK � De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Peo­ple's Re­pub­lic of Ko­rea (North Ko­rea) will win the Fi­fa 2010 World Cup.

Dowl­ing is a dead duck, a wick­et wait­ing to hap­pen. De­spite two half cen­turies against Aus­tralia last year, and a near hun­dred against Bangladesh, he has shown no un­der­stand­ing of bats­man­ship. His feet are al­ways to­geth­er when he plays any shot, and it re­al­ly is on­ly a mat­ter of time be­fore he is dis­missed, 'edg­ing'. Dowl­in does not need a bat­ting coach. He needs an air­plane to take him back home! Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel must be sali­vat­ing, com­pet­ing even, when­ev­er they see Dowl­in com­ing to the crease, fight­ing for this so very easy wick­et. It is like bowl­ing at a tail-en­der. Nars­ingh De­onar­ine al­so is not far off that as­sess­ment ei­ther. One re­al­ly won­ders what play­ers like Lendl Sim­mons have done not to be se­lect­ed. Even if he has to open the in­nings, Dar­ren Bra­vo must be a far bet­ter bet!

Ravi Ram­paul, as fat as a fowl; check out his bel­ly; is not a Test bowler at all. Do not even in­sult the word "fast". To date, Ram­paul has played four Tests, and has tak­en four wick­ets, yes, four wick­ets, each at a phe­nom­e­nal 91.75 runs per wick­et. If you are Chris­t­ian, Mus­lim or Hin­du, or nei­ther, all that we all can do now is pray, much, please! It would not be a great achieve­ment, for me or for any­one else. I am sure that I could make a come-back. At age 57, fair­ly fit, I am sure that I can bowl bet­ter than Ram­paul now, not when I bowled 30-35 years ago. At the very least, I would be able to keep two con­sec­u­tive de­liv­er­ies on one side of the pitch. These play­ers are so poor, it is past em­bar­rass­ing. Has it re­al­ly oc­curred to any­one any­where that they rep­re­sent us?

As I warned weeks ago, in an open note to Otis Gib­son, De­nesh Ramdin's bat­ting had dis­ap­peared, and his wick­et-keep­ing was de­te­ri­o­rat­ing sim­i­lar­ly, quick­ly. Af­ter the dis­play in Test num­ber one, both of his skills are now ab­sent. Any­one se­lect­ed to keep wick­et would look bet­ter, I am quite sure. Why are we con­tin­u­ing with him any­way? Both Gayle, and Shiv­nar­ine Chan­der­paul, as bats­men, tried. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, both have too much pres­sure on their bat­ting skills to car­ry this team. Bri­an Lara and Viv Richards would strug­gle to car­ry this team, if they were now in­clud­ed. It is very hard to take. Al­so, some­how, Bren­don Nash seemed de­ment­ed. Since when is he Matthew Hay­den? Sulie­man Benn and Shane Shilling­ford, in his First Test, bowled equal­ly well.

The last West In­dies pair­ing of left-arm or­tho­dox spin and right arm off-spin, to­geth­er, would have been Al­bert Pad­more and Ju­madeen against In­dia; 1976. In­dia made that as­tro­nom­i­cal 402 to win then.

Lance Gibbs and Garfield Sobers; ear­ly 70's; are more of note, and of course, there were the leg­endary Son­ny Ra­madin and Alf Valen­tine in 1950's; against Eng­land. Ram and Val were so good, ca­lyp­soes were made for them! So, what do we do about these present West In­dies play­ers? Some­one even men­tioned that we should "not give up on our boys." Un­for­tu­nate­ly, the boys have giv­en up on us, or more par­tic­u­lar­ly, they are past be­ing able to rep­re­sent us. They are that poor! I would not sug­gest the "rub out" ex­treme, but some­thing has to be done. We de­serve bet­ter rep­re­sen­ta­tion. We hope that they do not lose every match in this se­ries!