Going, Going...

The second test at Port of Spain is all but gone. England are a mere 20 runs away from wrapping it up and taking an unbeatable lead in the series.

The details of the batsmen's dismissals are not worth repeating, but several other facts perhaps are. First, the West Indies selectors got what was expected after picking a largely unchanged batting order from the one that folded for 47 in a single session at Sabina Park.

At the very least, they could have omitted Sarwan and let him sort out his game in the nets. One wonders how many more times he would need to be dismissed leg before, especially playing around his pads, before the problem is acknowledged. Complaints about umpiring decisions apart, Sarwan is a prime candidate for leg before decisions. Can anyone doubt this fact?

Chanderpaul did come good in the second innings, but his recent pattern of failing in two innings for each productive one is not helping the team's cause. Even worse is the fact that the team has no bench strength whatsoever, so there is no pressure on him to perform.

A lot of the blame is going to fall on Lara for his failure with the bat. Truth be told, Lara is two months away from being 35 years of age. Most batsmen are pretty much finished by this age. The ones who do continue playing only serve to put finishing touches on the work of their younger, presumably more run hungry colleagues. Lara has gone through his entire career with no supporting cast worth the name. Now, in the autumn of his career, he finds himself in the unenviable position of lifting up an entire lineup of underachieving batsmen. Who can blame him if he finds the burden entirely too heavy?

Rather than focus blame on a man who has singlehandedly kept the West Indian batting flag flying for the last decade, one should ask why the likes of Gayle, Sarwan and Chanderpaul find it impossible to keep up the scoring rate of their counterparts in other test teams? A half-century from any of them seems like a gift from the Gods, but batsmen like Kallis and Dravid average nearly a century per innings in recent games. One look at the recent as well as career averages of the West Indian top order batsmen, in comparison to those from Australia, South Africa, India and England will tell us why the West Indies has been losing record after record set by the illustrious teams of 1976-1995.

Hindsight is always perfect, but one could justifiably claim that this test was lost in the first innings. In reasonable batting conditions, the West Indian total of 208 was always going to be insufficient. For several years, the West Indies specialised in winning test matches after spending a portion of the game on the backfoot. A succession of great bowlers, notably Curtley Ambrose and Courtney Walsh, ensured that the West Indies won many many games that had already been lost with the bat. The dismissal of England for 43 and the successful defense of several other small fourth innings total spring quickly to mind.

As a result, somewhere along the way, West Indian cricket seems to have lost the art of batting their opposition into the ground. Any team that was coming back from the ignominy of 47 all out would have aimed at a total of 500, to show the opposition bowlers their place. Moreover, with this bowling lineup, a large total was absolutely necessary to put any pressure on England.

Instead, this team came up with another meek 200-run first innings total. England, in their turn, batted with all the application that the Windies did not show and eked out what turned out to be a winning lead. The difference between the English and West Indian teams was the application shown by the English top order. The respective scores tell the tale. Without contributions from Ridley Jacobs in both innings, West Indies would have done considerably worse.

By the time Gayle had his stumps rattled by a delivery that kept low in the second innings, and Lara found one similarly trapping him in front, the pitch was misbehaving enough for the game to be impossible to save. True, some phenomenal batting could have enabled West Indies to set a fourth innings target of some consequence, but a team that was bent on winning this game would have dominated the first innings. By the time the team came out to bat a second time, with a hundred run deficit, the psychological battle was all but lost. It is a matter of time before the cricketing one followed suit.

Lastly, it is about time technology played a much greater part in cricket. From leg before dismissals to no-balls that are not given, there seem to be few areas in which umpires do not make errors. It may be simple enough to have a camera focussed on the crease, with a light or beep to indicate a no-ball. This way, the umpire could be freed to concentrate on the delivery, and not bother about the crease. Besides, this technology has already been in use for several years in tennis.

* Venky Maly's writing has been featured on CaribbeanCricket.com since 2001. Inspired by the memories of Viv Richards in full flight, he endeavours to chart the gloriously uncertain course of West Indian cricket with his match reports, analyses and opinion pieces.