Tests that separated men from boys

The leadership of the West Indies cricket team is at a very serious, unenviable level at present.

It seems there is a severe lack of cricket knowledge – and a total shortage of what is required to produce a winning combination.

When I read the utterances of the coach, Andre Coley, and the captain, Kraigg Brathwaite, on the WI team, I can’t help but wonder who the selectors are.

After being annihilated by England, three Test matches to none, in England, WI must have been looking forward to playing South Africa at home, to give a better showing.

Alas! It was not to be. In a series of only two Tests, the first at the Queen’s Park Oval in Trinidad was badly affected by the weather. The second was played at the Providence Stadium in Guyana, where WI were destroyed in three days.

WI’s history against the Proteas is poor. At the end of the apartheid era, in 1992 the South Africans, arranged a visit to the WI to play a one-off Test in Barbados. WI emerged the victors in a close encounter.

Since then, in ten series, five in South Africa and five in the WI, South Africa have won 23 Tests to WI’s two, while eight were drawn.

In spite of that, skipper Brathwaite announced he’s confident in the team chosen. He said: “It will be hard work – Test cricket is always hard work – but I believe in this group and we just got to believe in ourselves. You know both as batters and as a bowling unit, we just got to be disciplined.

“I think that’s one of the main things. Once we do that then it makes things easier with the ball and every bat.”

Discipline is not something one can just wish for. It is a training imposed for the improvement of physical powers, self-control etc. The captain believes saying, “We just got to be disciplined” means it will be so.

That virtue should have been instituted at practice sessions from day one. And that’s basic!

Then, talking about hard work – it’s not! It is enjoyable, and players should practise long hours every day, because they are glad to improve their standard of skill, to provide the highest quality of performance.

Over and above that, Brathwaite had the audacity to say that the rain had stopped WI victory in the first Test, after South Africa had declared their innings closed at 173/3 in their second innings, to try and force a result. A pathetic batting effort with still 97 runs to go and rain on the hills. It was very doubtful.

The ability to read how the pitch will play is beyond the capability of the West Indian captain and his advisers.

He said in his interview before the Test at Providence Stadium: “I think it is important to get a good first-inning total; that’s one thing, as a batting group, we discussed, and bowling-wise, it’s just to be disciplined.”

This is tantamount to saying: “Once we make more runs than our opponents, we’ll win the game.”

So wait: there are times when it’s not important to get a good first-inning total? And one’s bowlers have a choice of being disciplined or not?

This talk is more for a lecture at a coaching school, rather than a motivating factor for a Test team before a game. These are attributes that players should have already learned before they attained this level of cricket.

I’ve never heard such drivel.

There’s a lot more, on which space prevents me from expounding.

The WI cricketers were led astray by the captain when he told them it is a slow wicket, as in Trinidad. The pitch at Queen’s Park Oval was grassless and lifeless, and hence not suitable for strokeplay. Because of its preparation and being devoid of grass, it provided no pace and bounce. Those are the elements needed to encourage strokes from batsmen. Because of its nature, bowlers, meanwhile, are invigorated, as they extract assistance from the grass through bounce and seam.

The wicket at Providence was the opposite of Port of Spain, where the faster bowlers got the bounce and seam they were denied in the first Test.

Yet in both Tests, turn was also apparent. It separated the men from the boys in professional batsmanship. It exposed the deficiency of batting technique in the WI team as it exists.

WI batsmen need much longer hours in the nets.