An Unchanged Team!?!

The shock of seeing the team announced for the second test against England was perhaps greater than that of seeing the West Indies fold for 47 in a single session at Sabina Park. At first glance, one would have been forgiven for thinking that West Indies won the first Test, and were merely replacing Fidel Edwards because he was injured.

Teams get altered not simply because some changes are obligatory. Some changes are made to make a statement. Given the West Indian performances recently, especially the all-time low at Sabina, what was needed was definitely a strong statement.

After their recent performances, are we to think that Sarwan, Gayle and Chanderpaul are simply above reproach? Granted, all of them are very capable batsmen, but when a team has been losing for many years, and when it gets bundled out in a single session in regular batting conditions, one simply cannot treat the event as just another failure.

Gayle was dismissed in the second innings playing an airy shot outside the off stump. A ridiculous dismissal that opened up the top order. His weakness outside the offstump has become an open door for opponents in recent years.

The West Indian firmament has been studded with several batsmen who have been capable of playing blazing innings, but in a test match environment, all of them have managed to temper their aggression in order to be consistent scorers at the same time. In recent history, Gordon Greenidge, Desmond Haynes and Richie Richardson have all been capable of the destructive batting that Gayle has shown, yet they managed to hold themselves in reserve to produce test match runs. This ability to remain great strokemakers, while producing runs consistently not only enabled the West Indies to be unquestionably the most entertaining team around the world, but also the most successful. If recent innings by Gayle are to be any indication, we may be regressing to the days of "Great to Watch, Easy to Defeat".

After his double century in Australia recently, we heard Tendulkar say that he simply refused to play shots in the arc between extra cover and third man, since it caused so many dismissals recently. In effect, he completely shut himself off in that area and forced bowlers to bowl to his strengths. When are we going to hear of a similar adjustment from a West Indian batsman? Are they simply going to play by instinct time and again even when they know opponents are targeting specific areas?

Even worse was Sarwan, who was trapped in front, shuffling in both innings. A dismissal one could expect from a tentative tailender, not a Number Three. Certainly not from someone who is considered a certainty in the team. His tendency to be stuck on the backfoot has caused numerous dismissals over his career. Again, an example of a batsman who has simply not adjusted. Would putting him under more pressure to score consistently not help in bringing out the best in Ronnie Sarwan?

Chanderpaul has been a mainstay of the West Indian batting almost since his debut. I would suggest, however, that he has underperformed for most of that time. In recent series, his pattern has been to fail most of the time, and then compensate with one or two good innings. If this is to be considered sufficient for a pillar of the team, batsmen like VVS Laxman, Saurav Ganguly, Nasser Hussain and Steve or Mark Waugh would never have come under pressure in their respective sides. Any class batsman will come good once in a while, if he is assured of a place in his side. However any team that wants to be competitive in world cricket has to expect more from its top order batsmen.

A team that depends on top order batsmen who fail this often is likely to be just as fragile. Granted, the West Indian bowlers have scored centuries in Bradmanesque fashion in recent series, but strong performances by the batsmen would have enabled the team to draw most games, if nothing else.

If not for any other reason, to show that higher standards are absolutely needed, the West Indies could have made a statement by dropping two batsmen among Gayle, Sarwan and Chanderpaul for the next test. In order to present some hard numbers to back up this assertion, here are the scores since the tour to Zimbabwe last year for all these batsmen (any score below 50 has been counted as a "failure", a reasonable assertion for a top order batsmen, especially when all opposing teams, including Zimbabwe are consistently posting scores over 500).

Gayle: 14, 13, 47, 0, 8, 26, 116, 32, 77, 107, 5, 9
Summary: 12 innings, 9 failures. 454 runs. Average of 37.8.

Sarwan: 9, 39, 65, 9, 21, 8, 4, 114, 44, 69, 13, 119, 0, 0
Summary: 14 innings, 10 failures. 514 runs. Average of 36.7.

Chanderpaul: 36, 39, 15, 15, 34, 74, 0, 109, 42, 27, 7, 0
Summary: 12 innings, 10 failures. 398 runs. Average of 33.1.

To me, it is clear that none of the three are automatic selections. Certainly not after a humiliating defeat.

It is easy say that there are no ready alternatives. However, the fact is that alternatives are developed, they do not just appear from nowhere. If the selectors had not tried Marlon Samuels or Dwayne Smith, they would not have succeeded at Test level either. Had the selectors simply allowed Dillon, Drakes and Cuffy to be fixtures in the team, we would never have known of the existence of Jermaine Lawson, Fidel Edwards, Jerome Taylor or Ravi Rampaul.

Dropping Gayle, Sarwan or Chanderpaul would not necessarily have ended any of their careers, but it may have galvanised them into performing more consistently, and may have sent a much needed signal to younger batsmen that they had a chance of being selected for the West Indian team, and that performances do count.

The West Indian team management missed a chance to make these very significant statements. What has transpired behind closed doors is not known to us, but one hopes the message sent to the team has not been the same as that sent out to the cricketing public of the Caribbean.

* Venky Maly is a cricket enthusiast whose greatest inspiration is the memory of Viv Richards in full flight. He has been a regular contributor to CaribbeanCricket.com. His match reports and opinion pieces have been featured on the site since 2001.