T&T's first class season post mortem
Sun, Apr 19, '09
commentary by DARAN SOONDARSINGHHaving read Fazeer Mohammed's article on April 15th 2009 titled 'Forget the Excuses', I was initially in agreement that TT should not really blame their 4th place finish in this season's tournament on the weather but on the fact that the team did not perform at crucial times in the majority of their FC matches this season and indeed in crucial must win encounters we were found wanting.
Fazeer went further to link the non-performances on the hunger of the players and their motivation to perform at this level suggesting that some may have been more motivated by money than just pride in representing their country.
''First (and really the only issue as far as I am concerned), it must be determined whether cricketers representing us are really motivated to give their all for the country. Are too many of them in a comfort zone as a result of the money earned from their limited-over successes over the past three years, especially from Sir Allen Stanford's events? Are there lingering grouses with the Trinidad and Tobago Cricket Board that are just being papered over?"
I was waiting to hear the comments of TT's Coach Kelvin Williams and finally TT's Manager Colin Borde for their respective takes on the national team's performances.
While Williams attributed some of TT failures to what may be perceived as a lack of fight in the TT players. Borde saw it differently and was more of the opinion that TT was a team in transition, built around youth, and that this season could be the one that the players would learn from and better prepare them for battles which were still ahead.Borde also contended that TT were the regional 20/20 Champs and 50 Overs Champs and the players were very motivated to play for their country but not as experienced as TT teams in the past.
"T&T team manager Colin Borde told the Express yesterday that "they (the players) are fully motivated", but some of the younger members, some of whom were introduced to the squad this season, were "inexperienced" and did not know when to capitalise on certain situations.'Regardless of what your personal thoughts are the TTCB has launched it's own investigation and it remains to be seen if the findings would be made public.
For my part, I decided to do some research to determine what the true story was.
Here is what I came up with:
While Fazeer noted that Jamaica were without the services of Chris Gayle, Brendan Nash, Jerome Taylor, Daren Powell and Nikita Miller and TT were without 2 senior seamers Ravi Rampaul and Reyad Emrit , both were injured in the early part of the campaign. The article neglected to state that TT were handicapped by:
- The injured Dwayne Bravo missing the entire season
- WI wicket keeper Ramdin played only 1 game
- Dave Mohammed went MIA after the first 3 games
- Experienced player Richard Kelly was not selected for the final 8 games due to form or fitness
- Lendl Simmons was called up to the WI Team and missed 6 games in total
- Keiron Pollard also missed 6 matches as a result of being selected for the WI ODI and 20/20 Teams
This would definitely have left a huge hole in the TT’s plans and as a result the squad would have had a lot of new players who would have needed time to settle.
All in all, TT used 22 players for the 12 games this season. Jamaica used 18.
TT gave a FC debut to 6 players which Jamaica blooded just 1 new player for the entire season.
Additionally, TT’s batting was focused on Daren Ganga and 2 rising stars - 18 year old Adrian Barath and 20 yr old Darren Bravo.
In the absence of Ramdin , Bravo Sr and Dave Mohammed. The TT team comprised 2 players with Test experience (D Ganga 48 Tests, A Jaggernauth 1). In spite of the absence of all the Jamaican stars they still boasted 6 players with Test experience (W Hinds, C Baugh, D Pagon, B Parchment, X Marshall & Dave Bernard Jr). This means that Jamaica’s reserve players were a lot more experienced than TT’s reserves which obviously had a lot to do with the Jamaican team’s dominance this season.
If the batting of both teams was to be compared, Jamaica’s batsmen all together spent 224 innings at the crease , 25 more than TT’s 199 innings. In these 224 innings Jamaica scored 5208 runs at an average of 26.57 per wicket while TT batsmen scored 5,132 runs at an average of 30.01 runs per wicket. Which is 76 less runs than Jamaica in 25 less innings.
Additionally, Jamaica had only 3 centurions in 12 games accumulating 4 hundreds for the season while TT had 5 centurions who accumulated 7 hundreds. So all in all TT’s batting held it’s own.
So where did we go wrong? The truth….outside of the weather……(And the disgraceful behaviour of the Bajas in Guaracara Park)…….our bowlers let us down.
In the absence of Emrit and Rampaul , TT were forced to blood 2 seamers with ZERO FC experience (Allert and Stewart). Also, in order to fill the considerable void left by the absence of Dave Mohammed TT tried 3 different full time spinners and used S Ganga and I Khan a lot to support the under par Jaggernauth.
TT’s bowlers collected 187 wickets at 27.66 this season when compared with Jamaica’s 214 wickets at 22.39. Can this 27 wicket difference be attributed to the weather restricting the number of days TT were able to bowl at their opposition during the season? Well sure yes but, Jamaica got their wickets on average one every 49 deliveries as opposed to TT getting a wicket every 60 deliveries.
This stat was further supported by 3 Jamaican bowlers having 10 wicket hauls for the season as opposed to only Ravi Rampaul getting one for TT. Which boils down to the cold hard fact that Jamaica had more match winners in the bowling department this season as well as more experienced bowlers.
There were positives where the bowling was concerned for TT. Ravi Rampaul returned from injury to capture 33 wickets in 6 games at an average of 17. Opening batsman Imran Khan got 38 wickets in 8 games at an average of 19. S Ganga also chipped in at important times with 26 wickets from his 12 games along with 2 scores in the 90’s useful returns from the all rounder. There was also the impressive debut of seamer Atiba Allert.
One area overlooked was that of the wicket keeper. Gibran Mohammed is an excellent gloveman but his returns for the season were unacceptable (150 runs from 11 games at an average of 10). This is an area where TT would need to focus their attention.
There is no doubting that TT flopped in their final game vs CCC which condemned them to 4th place this season. Had TT won outright we would have placed 3rd, 1 point behind the Windward Islands and 1 point ahead of the Leeward Islands.
The truth is, had the team been able to execute more effectively when the game was on the line this season would have been a different story. Their 4th place finish was due to a combination of factors , namely the weather, the Captain had a steady but overall uninspired campaign and the bowlers found it difficult to dismiss batsmen compared with prior years. To suggest the team underperformed due to a lack of motivation is perhaps premature with this young crop of TT players.
Thoughts?