West Indies are Tactically Inflexible

Quite understandably there has been a lot of comment in the aftermath of the West Indies 50-50 start to the World Cup campaign. After all we are West Indians. Win, lose, or draw we have to have a say. More importantly, we are hungry for victory. But this is cricket; you win some and you lose some. Yet, as the comments have revealed, it is the manner of losing that really matters. Similarly, it is the approach to analysis of what transpired that determines the conclusions about causes.

I have followed all the reasons advanced for our loss against New Zealand -- Hooper?s tactics and injudicious hook shot; Samuels? catch; Gayle?s full tosses; and McLean?s poor spell. Well, all of the above together contributed to the West Indies defeat, because cricket is a team sport. The attempt to pinpoint a single cause invariably leads to mis-analysis, especially when one is dealing with a limited-overs game where the room for recovery from errors is very slim. Yet, there can be a single explanation, if one looks at the overall picture.

With all due respect to my friend, Ryan Naraine, while I agree with much of his assessment of Hooper the cricketer, I disagree with his conclusion that Hooper?s dismissal made the difference. I also disagree with Hooper and Lara that the Samuels dropped catch made the difference.

Blaming the Samuels dropped catch for the defeat is the product of ?instant analysis,? which seems to be the norm these days. That conclusion can be dismissed with pure cricket logic. Here goes. Adams was not the last batsman. Had the catch been taken, Oram and Bond could have come in and scored the runs that Adams went on to score and even more. With the kind of bowling that was served up at the end, any ?two bits? tailender could have scored runs.

Was Hooper?s wicket the crucial one? Lets see. Remember it was Lara?s wicket that was the big fish. Lara?s dismissal did two things simultaneously -- it raised the Black Caps' game five notches and it threw the West Indies plan in confusion. It is that convergence that accounted for Hooper and Chanderpaul. Then something else happened; Powell went shortly afterwards. It was poor tactics to send Powell before Jacobs. What was needed after Chanderpaul?s dismissal was consolidation for which Sarwan and Jacobs are well suited as they exhibited. But, when the consolidation was over, and eight runs per over were needed, there was no Powell to lead the charge. Powell in those last overs is more deadly that Jacobs.

So the West Indies lost not because of Hooper?s shot or the Samuels missed catch. Important though these were, they are nevertheless predictable outcomes of the situations in which they occurred. We lost because we were tactically inflexible or impoverished. In sports you must study your opponent and constantly reassess tactics. What a difference it would have made had Lara opened the batting! It would have upset the Black Cap plans for sure.

The noise about finding someone to bowl at the death exposes a mindset that is hooked on specialization. I oppose it. Cricket these days is about innovation and study, not specialization. Who bowls at the death should be determined by the circumstances--the state of the pitch, the state of the match, the quality of batsmen at the crease etc. The idea of a specialized ?death? bowler is simplistic. If Drakes is on a roll and picking up wickets early on, why take him off to save him for the death?

Finally, the reason the West Indies can?t find an effective third seamer is because that person is in the West Indies playing Carib Beer cricket. When you have Pedro Collins, Collymore and McClean on tour and Reon King at home, as Calypsonian Chalkdust sings, ?Somebody got to be mad?.

Here is my parting shot: Both Collymore and Collins will be hard pressed to make the Barbados team. Tino Best, Bradshaw, Collins, Collymore and Drakes vying for three spots -- Take your pick.

* Dr David Hinds lectures in Caribbean and Africana Studies at Arizona State University in the USA. He has written extensively on Guyana and Caribbean politics and West Indies cricket. His writings can be found on his GuyanaCaribbeanPolitics Web site.