Pri­or to the start of the One-Day In­ter­na­tion­al se­ries against Aus­tralia, West In­dies cap­tain Chris Gayle bold­ly pre­dict­ed a 4-1 se­ries vic­to­ry in favour of?his de­plet­ed team. Sud­den­ly the score­line read 2-0 in favour of the ram­pag­ing Aussies and our pre­dict­ing cap­tain changed his tune to?a 3-2 win for the tour­ing side. The third game was washed out in Syd­ney and West In­dies hopes were com­plete­ly dashed in Bris­bane as the Aussie skip­per Ricky Ponting belt­ed his 29th ODI cen­tu­ry to lead his team to record score of 324.

I was look­ing at the match on tele­vi­sion and for­lorn­ly switched off the TV at the end of the Aus­tralian car­nage, know­ing painful­ly that a West In­dies vic­to­ry was hope­less as wa­ter stored in a bas­ket.

Is Gayle suf­fer­ing from an acute bout of foot in mouth dis­ease? The team is com­pet­ing with­out Ramnaresh Sar­wan, Shiv­nar­ine Chan­der­paul and tal­is­man Dwayne Bra­vo. Why put pres­sure on such an in­ex­pe­ri­enced team? The re­turn of Re­nako Mor­ton and Wavell Hinds is even more con­fus­ing. Are the se­lec­tors' heads buried in the sand? It is high time that the West In­dies se­lec­tors ac­count to the peo­ple with re­gard to the cri­te­ria used for play­er se­lec­tion. West In­dies crick­et is a pub­lic in­sti­tu­tion.

More wor­ries for the West In­dies as tal­ent­ed speed­ster Ke­mar Roach has bro­ken down with an an­kle in­jury. Gayle bat­ted su­perbly in the Test se­ries and has con­fessed that the fiery Aus­tralian pac­er Doug Bollinger has had his num­ber through­out the Test and ODI se­ries (Bollinger has scalped his wick­et five times). The fi­nal match be­gins in Mel­bourne tonight T&T time.?While there has been some cred­itable per­for­mances from Pol­lard, Smith and Ram­paul, the West in­dies are fac­ing a 4-0 drub­bing. I would se­ri­ous­ly ad­vise our in­spi­ra­tional cap­tain to let his bat do the talk­ing as he did in the Test se­ries in­stead of run­ning his mouth all over the place.

Reza Abasali

San Juan