An absence of cricket intelligence

BY BRYAN DAVIS

THE absence of Cricket Intelligence (CI) in the West Indies (WI) cricket team is flaring up drastically. Another ODI series has been lost. A clean sweep by India; the first time this has ever occurred against this opponent.

The head coach Phil Simmons says, “It (batting) does need urgent attention because it has just lost us the last two games. I think you bowl India out for 230-odd, 260-odd and you expect to chase it.

“Just under a year ago, we were cruising to 280 and 290 against Sri Lanka which had similar spinners and things like that, so the batting is a huge concern and people have got to stand up now as we go into our next set of ODIs in June and make sure they are batting for the WI and do what we have to do as a unit. So it is a huge concern.”

For greater understanding, I’ll try and decipher what the coach had to say. He said the batting needs urgent attention.

Of course, it does and any 12-year-old cricketer can support this. WI, in three games, never got to 200 runs, nor batted out the allotted 50 overs.

Consequently, in need of urgent attention? No scholarship is needed for this argument. But who is supposed to apply the attention?

Then, he continued, “just under a year ago we were cruising to 280 and 290 against Sri Lanka which had similar spinners.” However, Indian seamer Prasidh Krishna was the Player of the Series. India’s fast bowlers claimed 21 wickets in the series.

We couldn’t handle the fast bowlers so where did the coach get the idea that we collapsed to the spinners? The slower bowlers didn’t get much of a chance; the fast bowlers seemed to be begging for the ball to get at the WI batsmen.

Plus, Simmons feels that the batting is a huge concern and “people have got to stand up now as we go into our next set of ODIs in June and make sure they are batting for the WI and do what they have to do as a unit.”

This is ambiguous talk. Who is the coach? From the words being uttered by the head coach of the WI team, it seems that he believes the players are the only ones at fault.

He should be saying that the batsmen are short on concentration, an important and vital virtue for batting successfully.

Their confidence levels are low. Their technique is loose and needs critical and immediate attention. After his appraisal, he ought to conclude that the answer to all these shortcomings is in the practice nets. Close supervision is required. And he wouldn’t have to preach to them. Just ensure they bat for a long time, meaning, a minimum of an hour a day per batsman. No slogging.

Just proper stroke play. That will bring back the discipline that is absent.

That sort of practice would build the proper attributes which will ensure the CI necessary to bat properly in any format.

That intelligence would help the batsman to build his innings regardless of circumstances. He would be able to change and adjust because he’ll have the self-confidence to know what he’s doing.

The batsmen on the WI team are lacking direction because of the total absence of CI to direct their paths. Batting characteristics are developed, learnt and shaped by long sessions in the nets and not by numerous meetings and “old talk.”

It is work and more work. Every day in the nets, batting hour after hour after hour. It must be properly supervised to ensure the specific quality of each batsman is maximised.

The team is so accustomed to losing that the bad habit, thus formed, would be difficult to reverse.

Yet, when there are insipid statements like “Improvement more important than series win,” used by Roddy Estwick, the assistant coach to Simmons, after WI beat England in a close encounter in a T20 series in Barbados last month, one is left to wonder as to what purpose a game is being played.

WI is a hard-core, international cricket team, to which all energy and effort must be concentrated on winning; the sole reason to play the game. One wonders, therefore, not only where we are, but where we are headed.

It is sad to observe how far WI’s cricket has fallen. The only answer is to start winning. This will only come about with an improvement of batting discipline, plus general cricket intelligence.