In Defence of 7-1-3

Much has been made of the West Indies selectors' decision to go with only three specialist bowlers and rely on the part timers to pick up the slack. If not the majority of fans then at least a vocal minority seem to think that the omission of the customary fourth bowler is a poor choice.

The problem, so the argument goes, is that without the fourth bowler we cannot hope to bowl out a Test side or restrict an ODI side to a reasonable total. However, in principle, I believe that the 7-1-3 is a valid strategy given the current situation in the West Indies.

It is indeed comfortable to avoid coming at a problem from different angles and to just accept conventional wisdom, but history has shown that real progress is acheived by those who are willing to challenge dogma. Before the West Indies made it a proven means to destroying a batting lineup the conventionalists scoffed at the idea of a four pronged pace attack. "You have to have a spinner," they said. "You need balance."

It is time we started thinking out of the box again -- in case no one has noticed the conventional approach wasn't doing all that much for us. The fact of the matter is that the ommission of the fourth bowler in ODIs had no significant impact on the average score of the opposing team but it has enhanced the West Indies' ability to overhaul the large totals they have become used to chasing.

Here is the thing: it is all well and good to pick four specialist bowlers who are going to put in their share and on average give you the wickets you need or keep the scoring rate down. But when you know that you have at best only one or two bowlers available to you who are good enough to be classed specialist bowlers you need to start managing your assets.

In this case our assets, such as they are, are batsmen who can bowl and who can field well.

Among the top seven batsmen in recent West Indies sides you have four who can be considered genuine part time bowlers and another two who are worth an occasional bowl. Many other teams pick four bowlers plus an allrounder - we have three bowlers and four allrounders. Any captain who cannot work with seven bowling options is no captain at all.

Anyone looking closely will notice that the extra batsman - generally Ricardo Powell - has been a big asset in the field compared with our current crop of lumbering oafs. Certainly Vasbert Drakes is a fine fielder and Dillon on his day has made some good stops but go any further than that and you'll be hard pressed to find a specialist bowler in the West Indies who can be considered a good fielder not to mention a competent tailender.

If things were different in terms of available bowlers then certainly this approach would have less merit than it does now, but I challenge anyone to find four simultaneously fit West Indian bowlers who could consistently restrict opposing sides to under 250 in an ODI.

At the end of the day, 7-1-3 has been the closest thing to innovation shown by the team management in some time, and it has also proven to be the closest thing to a successful strategy we have had in some time. I say let's run with it, at least for the ODIs, until we can show that we have four quality bowlers willing and able to commit themselves to all three aspects of the game.