As West Indies extended Christmas charity to their South African hosts on the opening day of the second Test in Port Elizabeth on Friday, Michael Holding made an undeniable observation on television commentary.

It was that the all-conquering teams of the 1980s would not have been quite so dominant had he and his proliferation of pace partners been repeatedly betrayed by their fielders as are the present, appreciably weaker, West Indies.

Almost invariably, when Holding and his accomplices found edges that flew into slips and gully, any combination of Viv Richards, Clive Lloyd, Alvin Kallicharran, Lawrence Rowe, Roger Harper, Richie Richardson and Gordon Greenidge were there to latch on to them; the two Murrays, Deryck and David, and Jeffrey Dujon gloved the thin snicks.

Another good critique of the present day team, I do not know who gives the motivational speeches to these group of players, but I think they should stress to them to work daily on the fundamentals.

In reply to dayne

You are assuming that they know the fundamentals??

In reply to CaribbeanCricket.com

Weak products from an inferior system

In reply to Runs


They don't play enough quality cricket....that's a big problem and will keep them at the lower levels...