Selectors Must Take Blame for Failure

All the talk which has circulated over the past week concerning the West Indies cricket team and their recent struggles has focused mainly on the players, management and on the captain, with good reason, of course. However, one must not forget to place some of the blame on the selectors for their role in the debacle which West Indies cricket has been reduced to.

One has not forgotten that this is a new panel of selectors. With Sir Vivian Richards as the new chairman of selectors, one hopes that things will change, hopefully for the betterment of West Indies cricket. Joey Carew is the only surviving member of the previous panel, which was so heavily criticised by West Indian cricket fans and by regional journalists.

This panel carries a huge mandate on its shoulders, with the improvement of the fortunes of West Indies cricket. Richards has been touring with the team in India and has chaired selection meetings. For the second Test match, only two changes were made to the side which was outplayed in every department. What stands out are the surface changes which barely address the problems that are quickly enveloping West Indies cricket.

One major problem has to do with attitude and aptitude with regard to play at the international level. All elements of our game have been cruelly exposed at the international level. The West Indies team have been outclassed in batting and fielding by almost every team which we have had to face. Our bowling has been the saving grace. While not of the same class as teams such as Australia, it has the ability to keep teams on their toes and restricting them to reasonable scores.

Our bowling has suffered from lack of support in the field (dropped catches were a disappointing feature of our game in the first two Test matches) and from support in the field placings. West Indies have been too negative in their field placings, especially too early in the opposition?s innings. Mervyn Dillon and Pedro Collins are capable and threatening new ball bowlers, however, the major problem seems to be back-up for these bowlers. The use of ordinary spin bowlers defeated the work of this pair. West Indies spinners have combined for eight wickets. The Indian spinners have 28 wickets between them. The policy of playing a spinner when Carl Hooper is in the side is mindboggling.

One question for the selectors would be related to the delay in naming a squad for the 2003 World Cup Competition. It has been the case in West Indies cricket for too long whereby there has been a delay in organisation. For too long our cricket has operated in a heightened state of confusion.

The 2002 Busta Cup Competition is the only major one-day tournament in the Caribbean for potential West Indian cricketers. This tournament has been completed almost two months and it stands to reason that a squad should have been announced. One is not asking for a final 16.

However, a training squad of perhaps the top 30 players should have been announced. This would give the authorities an opportunity to set programmes in place to adequately prepare them for the challenges which lie ahead for them in South Africa.

Since the 2002 Red Stripe Bowl Competition is the basic yardstick under which selection to the World Cup squad is based, then it should not be too hard to name a group of the top players. The opportunity presents itself for the group to be inserted into an intensive programme which is designed to improve their performances. 2002 Red Stripe Bowl Champions Barbados, Jamaica, Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago, made it into the semi-finals of the competitions. Looking at the final overall statistics, Barbadians Floyd Reifer, with 355 runs at 118.33; Philo Wallace, 248 at 41.33; Ryan Hinds, 245 at 40.83, shows that Barbadians are in the top three of the competition batting averages. Jamaicans Chris Gayle and Wavell Hinds follow with 229 runs at 45.80 and 213 at 53.25, respectively. Brian Lara, Carl Hooper and Marlon Samuels all feature in the top performers. Why has it taken so long? Mervyn Dillon, Daren Powell, Fernix Thomas, Mahendra Nagamootoo and Sulieman Benn have all taken more than ten wickets in the tournament.

Therefore, one has to ask why Reifer has been excluded from West Indian teams, of late? As the MVP of the tournament, he should be on the shortlist for the World Cup in 2003. One thing which the selectors have done is reward performances in the regional competitions. It has set an interesting path which they must not abandon. Players such as Gareth Breese, Mahendra Nagamootoo, Daren Powell and Jermaine Lawson have all been rewarded for performances in the first class competition. Therefore, the selectors have indirectly stated that the top performers in the bowl competition can look forward to the possibility of an international call-up.

Another issue would be the lack of quality allrounders in the West Indies side. One could assume that this problem has severely hampered the selectors. All of the top teams have produced quality all-round cricketers, who can change the course of a match with the ball or the bat. Australia have the Waugh brothers (Mark and Steve), Ricky Ponting, Damien Martyn and others who can change the course of a match with some facet of their cricketing prowess. South Africa has Lance Klusener, Shaun Pollock and Jacques Kallis. India has Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly and Sri Lanka has Sanath Jayasuriya and Aravinda da Silva.

We have depended for too long on Carl Hooper who is the closest thing we have to a genuine allrounder. Hooper has played 101 matches, scored 5743 runs at 36.57 with a best of 233. He has also taken 113 wickets at 48.99. One wonders why our top batsman Brian Lara has not been more of a force with his bowling. This game has developed to a stage where every contribution is essential to the team?s success. As a student of the game, he is capable of reading batsmen and might be able to find their weakness with his bowling. It should be looked into. Sachin Tendulkar does the same for India, especially in the one-day format of the game.

Another major problem concerns the crisis of nationalism. It is a force which threatens to undermine all the tremendous advancements which have been made through the unity which West Indies cricket demands. It is the only sport which requires the combined efforts of the entire cricketing Caribbean.

The "Big Island" versus "Small Island" syndrome has threatened to inflict serious wounds in the fabric of West Indies cricket. The four major centres of West Indies cricket ? Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana, should be at forefront of any move to rebuild and re-establish West Indies cricket as a force on the world stage. These four territories have the history and experience with a long and cherished background in the hallowed sport. We in the Caribbean compete economically and otherwise, especially with the onset of globalisation. We compete for tourists and that same competition has extended itself into cricket and continues to cause problems.

Richard Burton in "Cricket, Carnival and Street Culture in the Caribbean", makes an interesting observation. Making reference to the West Indian loss to England in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, Burton makes notes the reaction of the West Indian cricket fans. "There was, Clive Lloyd writes in his autobiography, 'an eerie silence when we walked off the ground' and that evening, in a classically carnivalesque gesture, an effigy of Sobers was hanged and burned in Independence Square in the centre of Port-of-Spain; 'it was then that I really came to realize what losing meant to West Indians'." One wonders if those in charge of West Indian cricket really know.