For Whom the Bells Toll

After a decade of decline West Indies fans may be forgiven for having believed that the long sought after corner is being turned, or that the faint glow ahead was the light at the end of the tunnel. After collapsing against England so emphatically, that glow may just be the fires of Rome burning, and the sound we hear might be a violin and not someone playing pan.

As much as we all wanted to believe that we were moving forward, and that we had put the darkest days behind us, reality hit us all too hard at Sabina on Sunday. That reality is that in essence, nothing has changed. Some old faces have given way to new ones, both in the team and in the administration, but it has had no net effect.

No one can convince me that the talent pool has dried up. I do not for a minute buy the argument put forward mostly by foreign media that our youth are turning from cricket to football and basketball. Football has always been omnipresent and the reality is that basketball offers very little real opportunity in the region. Along with football, cricket remains one of the few viable ways for a professional sportsman to make a living in the Caribbean.

Indeed, looking at the players on offer there is no lack of talent -- today's young West Indians cricketers are no less talented than their forbears. What there is, is a lack of direction, a lack of focus, and quite possibly a lack of pride, but certainly no lack of talent. Many of the young players in and around the current West Indies team could have taken their place with the greats of yesteryear had they grown up with the same values, attitude, and work ethic.

Another popular scapegoat is the quality, or lack thereof, of the domestic competition. Again, it is difficult to really see how that can be the sole or even primary cause of our decline. While West Indian domestic cricket certainly does not come close to similar standards in England or Australia, the gap cannot be as great as some make it out to be when visiting teams like England 'A', India 'A', and Kenya fail to dominate it. Domestic players like Vasbert Drakes, Jimmy Adams, Nixon McLean and many others working as professionals in South Africa do quite well there, certainly as well as South Africa's own Test players do at the same level.

However, no one can deny that something is seriously wrong when a team with batsmen like Lara, Chanderpaul, and Sarwan can get bowled out by England for 47 at Sabina Park following an innings of over 300 on the same pitch. Certainly Steve Harmison deserves every credit for a fantastic display of fast bowling at the highest level, but 47 all out goes beyond that. Against the same opposition and on the same wicket a Jamaican second team made 188 only a week before.

A good team is more than the sum of its parts. If the West Indies cricket team could even be as good as the sum of its parts it would be a great team. Something, and no one knows or will say what, holds it back from reaching anything close to their potential. The elements that have been common throughout the decline of this team get fewer with every series.

The coaches have come and gone, but they have little if any impact. Perhaps this is a place that the cash-strapped WICB can make some saving, seeing as the money they spend there gives them no return.

Every new or recycled captain is hailed as a step forward, but they all go on to leave the job in disgrace or disgust. None of the captains in recent memory has shown any aptitude for tactical or strategic cricket, but several have led by example with either bat or ball. The end result has always been the same.

The WICB is constant in its bungling and ineptitude, but that practice goes back to the dawn of West Indies cricket. It is only now that information is more accessible that the public can see how things really are. Certainly they hinder as much as they help, but as an organization, they cannot continually cause eleven good players to fail so dramatically time and again.

The management of the team has remained constant under Ricky Skerritt. Although his duties are essentially clerical and his position mainly a legacy of the coup that ousted Pat Rosseau, according to internal WICB documents he seems to manage subtle interference. Certainly, one can wonder why tapes he received from Zorol Barthley never made their way to coach Gus Logie.

Skerritt has proved an irritant to players who he prevented from putting in extra practice and has shown no interest in reports of late night revelry on match nights. Even so, it is difficult to see how he alone can have a profound impact on the overall team dynamics.

Brian Lara, Shiv Chanderpaul and Ridley Jacobs are the only remaining players who have been part of the side throughout the most dramatic parts of the decline. All have contributed magnificently as individuals in their careers.

Jacobs, who will sadly not be remembered at his best but rather in his years of decline, has been a stout campaigner through thick and thin. There has never been any suggestion made by anyone that he is anything but a devoted team man.

Chanderpaul might have cause to be aggrieved at being passed over for the captaincy, but only his fans seem to have made any issue of it. Still a young man, the torch -- or poisoned chalice, depending on your point of view -- may yet fall to him. Even so, his frequent absence due to injury along with his somewhat moody and introverted nature rather rules him out as someone who has much influence over the team as a whole.

Which brings us to Lara.

Rumour and innuendo always follow the greatest players of any game and Brian Lara is no exception. And yet one cannot help but think that where there is smoke there is fire. Certainly Lara has had his share of documented clashes with, well, just about everyone. From cricket ruining his life to walking out just before the disastrous South African tour of 1998, it is easy to paint a picture of flawed genius, someone around whom there will always be a storm.

Inheriting a young and raw team, Lara was very much a father figure to whom the role of mentor and leader fell. Many hoped to see a wiser and more mature Brian Lara reform the West Indies and leave behind a legacy of rebirth when he raises the bat to the crowd for the final time. Many are still hoping.

More than any other individual, Brian Lara holds the keys to the mood and the morale of the West Indies cricket team. Always a dominant personality, as men of his calibre must be, Lara must teach himself and then his charges how to put the team above all else, and how much this institution of West Indies cricket means to all of us.

Those calling for his resignation are acting on impulse born of anger and frustration, not on reason. It will not serve anyone for Lara to resign the captaincy only to continue to brood under someone else. The call should be rather for him to live up to the responsibility of his primary task, which is not winning cricket matches so much as building winning cricket players. Men like Brian Lara can accomplish anything they set their minds to, and whether Lara is the root of the problem in the West Indies side or not, he can certainly change it if he chooses to.

After years of losing, countless personnel changes, captaincy changes, and infrastructure changes, nothing has really changed. The West Indies remains a side that can collapse spectacularly without even a fight and a side that anyone can see is not putting their backs into it. One man more than any other can effect the changes of attitude that are vital to ending the stagnation of West Indies cricket.

It may be that 47 all out will serve as the reminder he needs.