A woefully unprepared team

A CRICKETER cannot perform to the best of his ability unless he has the discipline required. It doesn’t matter whether he’s batting, bowling or fielding, he needs the right attitude to be able to function at the highest standard of which he’s capable.

This standard is developed by the way he trains. Training has to do with frequency, knowledge, guidance and attitude.

Enthusiasm is then generated and it makes the difference.

The West Indies team at the T20 World Cup 2022, has been bowled out of the competition, with the Super 12 under way in Australia. West Indies needed to qualify for the Super 12 phase, having not accumulated enough points to manage automatic qualification. Eight teams did so, including Afghanistan and Bangladesh, which left WI scraping the bottom of the barrel.

The once proud collection of dominant Caribbean cricketers, two-time world T20 champions as recent as 2012 and 2016, had fallen out of the top eight, suffering the indignity of having to be lumped with the lesser eight teams. Split in two groups, the teams that placed first and second in each group progressed to join the top eight to make the Super 12, to vie for cricket supremacy in the T20 cricket format.

Lo and behold, they flunked that examination as well.

To the utter humiliation of all WI fans worldwide, the shock is hardly bearable.

A look at our team and the way that they played revealed a lacklustre approach which can only be derived from insufficient training.

When this happens it is simply because of either underrating the opposition, or not preparing properly through lack of knowledge of what is required.

Observing the West Indian cricketers batting, they seemed to have no plan, nor to know what to do in a given situation. This is not through a shortage of talent or an inability to bat, but a deficiency in suitable guidance. This important element has to be provided by the coach. The WI squad is guided by a cadre of coaches headed by the head coach.

Our absolutely pathetic batting proved there was no proper training.

At international level, what a batsman needs more than anything else is confidence. In T20 cricket one is constantly under pressure, because of having a maximum of 120 deliveries for the team to accumulate their runs.

Once he doubts himself for a minute he’ll fall into error. Hence one witnesses many poor strokes, but the successful batsman in this format will minimise his errors through appropriate guidance. Encouragement is critical.

At this level the confidence of a batsman needs to be high at all times and the competent coach will know how to build that self-assurance. Also, he must pass on to the batsman how to play an innings, how to build it according to the dictates of the game.

The coach must know how to school these players in the nets to ensure they understand what they have to do and why they have to do it.

Our weakest link is the batsmen: there seems to be no idea of how to play an innings, selecting which balls to leave alone, those from which to score boundaries, others that can be played defensively and pick up singles.

Our problems lie with the coaches. Phil Simmons is the head coach and should be the one to develop the right attitude to all the disciplines of batting, bowling and fielding. He is the one who ought to be managing the coaches, ensuring the players have frequent practice, to see to it  only good habits are implanted. The frequent practice I refer to has to be long, hard hours of repetition.

Also, this type of encouragement to hard work improves the desire to win, the skillset to be successful and the assurance to enjoy the game. Together they build self-confidence, a winning attitude, and pride then attaches itself.

The head coach has to answer for the bad preparation of the team.

How can a team playing at this level not play and practise together constantly for at least three weeks before the tournament, if they are to do well?

The director of cricket for Cricket West Indies, Jimmy Adams, must be called to account, as the buck has to stop at his feet. What was his plan? Who chose the coaches and to whom do they report? And last but not least, how come in one year we went from bad to worse?