Latest update November 6th, 2024 1:00 AM
Jan 11, 2015 Sports
Colin E. H. Croft
At the time of writing this article forty eight hours ago, eleven of the scheduled fourteen national squads for ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 had been declared. West Indies’ squad was not among them!
Yet, somehow, individuals already seem to know that at least two of WI’s ODI stalwarts, Dwayne Bravo and Kieron Pollard, both of Trinidad & Tobago, had been omitted from WI’s squad for that competition.
It is nigh impossible to hide anything or anyone anymore, but how could that have happened?
Common sense suggests that either e-mailed selectors’ discussions had been intercepted; “hacked” – to use the technological term; or alleged omitted players had been notified, then divulged said information to friends and agents, or that WI’s selectors had unknowingly published their plans for WI’s CWC squad!
That ‘twittered’ observation from former West Indies Players Association President Dininath Ramnarine, who prides himself on integrity, a former WI leg-spinner whose career ended after not being selected to tour South Africa in 2003, has left WI cricket in yet another strange state of dizziness.
What is wrong with this picture? Will the sniping in West Indies cricket never end?
A new year has started. Intrigue in WI cricket continues. Yet, WI should be relatively happy, per the present SA tour, with preparations for its overall cricket for 2015.
Already recuperating from its 2-0 loss in the Test series, WI, via Chris Gayle, just beat SA in T-20 No. 1. Expect similar results in T-20 No. 2 and No. 3 too, since T-20’s is WI’s most productive cricketing format.
Gayle, who missed the Test series due to injury, has started the shorter series well with that dynamic, muscular 77, an innings that included the fastest WI T-20 fifty, five 4’s, eight 6’s, from only 31 deliveries faced. Yet WI struggled somewhat to get SA’s 165-4, ending at 168-6 in 19.2 overs.
WI and the entire cricket world are now hoping, holding their collective breaths, keeping fingers and toes crossed, that Gayle not only survives five ODI’s in SA too, but will be fit enough to also play, fire and contribute very well for WI in ICC CWC 2015, which will run for six weeks, containing forty nine games!
So, that just completed Test series v SA was not as bad on WI as many had predicted. SA did win, but a few WI players did themselves and their futures in representative teams some positives too.
Bowling was WI’s biggest liability in that Test series v SA, as WI’s bowlers did not manage to dismiss SA twice in any of the three Test matches, while SA had massive scores of 552-5d, 417-8d, 421 and 124-2.
Jerome Taylor, senior-most fast bowler, and oldest, aged 30, was especially disappointing. He looked terribly jaded, with no pace or aggression, even after a supposed long rest and recuperation from injury.
Taylor delivered 83.1 overs in three Tests, only four bowling innings, deluging 323 runs, economy rate 3.9, way too high for Test cricket, while getting only three wickets, a strike rate of an astronomical one wicket every 27 plus overs, averaging 107.33 runs per wicket. That is seriously poor form and returns!
Similarly putrid was Shivnarine Chanderpaul’s Test series. 91 runs, five innings, one innings alone 50 not out; innings No. 2, Test No. 3; average 18.20, was as underwhelming as anyone has ever seen Chanderpaul perform. Never did he seem settled against the pace and occasional spin of SA’s bowlers!
WI’s batting, overall, was not that great either. No innings got to 350, in five tries, the highest, only once over 300, being 329. But Marlon Samuels, Kraigg Brathwaite and Leon Johnson certainly stood out!
Extremely positive was Samuels’ team-topping aggregate and average, 268 runs, five innings, one century, one half-century; average 53.60. His maturity, shouldering his team’s batting responsibilities, shone through. He seemed to be continuing from that aborted series in India last year.
Brathwaite’s efforts were heartening if not as accomplished as expected. 183 runs, one century, five innings, average 36.60, all give hope for better when he plays his next Test series v England. With SA’s pitches not as quick or bouncy as expected, Brathwaite should probably have been more productive.
Johnson, on his first tour as a senior WI player, was the biggest positive of WI’s Test effort v SA. He definitely looked the part, unperturbed by SA’s bowlers’ reputations, confident in his own abilities.
Five innings, 168 runs, only one half century, average 33.60, all suggest consistency without being spectacular, but Johnson also suffered from general WI’s batsmen’s malaise; 30’s, 40’s and 50’s seem to be enough. In Test cricket, hardly does anyone notice that a batsman had made a half century!
Denesh Ramdin’s captaincy was neither good nor bad, as his batsmen and especially his bowlers let him down badly. Regardless of how innovative he might have thought of being, he did not have the team to even expand SA. Hopefully, v England and Australia later in 2015, Ramdin could have a better squad.
Now, WI are more in their element in SA; T-20’s and ODI’s. Look out for more fireworks too! Enjoy!
(E-mail: [email protected])
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