West Indies cricket in really bad place

THE EDITOR: I had stopped writing about West Indies cricket a few years now but after reading about the performances of the team in India and now in Bangladesh, compounded by the statement by Kraigg Brathwaite that they let Bangladesh off the hook, I had to pick up my pen again. The WI cricketers are not good, plain and simple.

I am fed up with statements about “taking the positives” from a defeat. That is what they go into a series for? To take the positives? What positives?

Shane Dowrich should never be on the team in front of Denesh Ramdin, who is the No 1 wicketkeeper in the West Indies. What madness!

There is talk about Shimron Hetmyer, the king vooper. His style is to see how many fours and sixes he can hit in an innings and he usually gets out hitting the ball in the air. In my opinion he cannot bat. He has to learn to bat. Vooping is not batting. The great Everton Weekes hit one six in his illustrious career.

Why is Darren Bravo not on the team? He is the one who should be spearheading the batting. Brathwaite and Kieron Powell are ordinary and are suspect to genuine pace and spin.

I leave the men for a while and touch on the women. If they would do some introspection, they would realise they were not making many runs, and only about three batters in an innings were getting to double figures, sometimes two.

The bowlers were winning the games, so when they came up against a good all-round team like Australia with seven batters, the writing was on the wall, whether they batted first or second.

In closing I would like to say that WI cricket is not in a good place and the cricketers should stop making foolish excuses, because when you’re good, you’re good and if you ain’t good, you ain’t good.

RAYMOND HACKSHAW
, Piarco