Feeling the Fielding

(Trinidad Guardian)

West Indies has deserted all basic principles in playing and in selection in the hope of winning a match here and there without being aware that such action will lead to a dead end.

So poor is the current bowling that, rather than playing any semblance of a bowling attack, two bowling 'specialists' were chosen and the rest of the team were batsmen who bowled occasionally in the recent Tri-Nations series. The rationale was that if the opposition scored a massive total, the batsmen would get it.

Overlooked was the fact that when a team faces a daunting total that is on the board already, the pressure can be such that batsmen are less effective than normal and the fielding team feels a countervailing confidence.

As could be expected, the Kiwis hammered the life out of a mediocre attack, aided by some sloppy fielding and even when there was a collapse in the late stages of the innings, 266 was not a bad total to defend with a varied attack against an inconsistent batting line up.

We know the result but is there anything to be learnt that can be factored into the progress of West Indies cricket?

First, as has been demonstrated time and time again, the standard of cricket, allround, is low. The fielding is poor.

The bowling is too bad to be true and the failure to even attempt to develop allround attacks, is myopic and counterproductive.

The batting is pitifully inconsistent and lacking in the basic discipline and quality that is needed for productivity at any level, but especially in Test cricket.

All this can be put down to the failure of the WICB and its satellites to institute the necessary, competent structures for the holistic development of all players?not merely their cricket technique, as important as that is.

How has a region, that so recently and for so long produced a stream of fast bowlers of excellence, fallen on such poor times?

This is the region that has produced a dynasty of peerless batsmen stretching in an unbroken chain from George Headley to Brian Lara. Why are there no successors?

Since Learie Constantine there have always been excellent fieldsmen with the teams of the seventies and eighties, with the likes of Lloyd, Bacchus, Harper, Logie, Greenidge, Haynes, Richards being the more noteworthy of great fielding teams.

For the past decade, the West Indies fields teams in which there are at least two or three who are absolute disasters in whatever position they occupy.

How does a man who can not field get to first class club level, let alone Test cricket?

Bowlers are playing Test cricket who can not hold a line and length. Men on the Test team deliver with their right arm at about 45 degrees from the line of their trunks. Did no coach ever see that when they played for their schools or clubs before they got into their national teams?

Batsmen are unable to play an innings in context. They play strokes and this despite the fact that successive opponents, who won, have remarked openly that the West indies batsmen come to play strokes, not innings and the opponents profit from that.

Earlier generations of West Indies fielded the fittest teams in the world.

The current West Indies has been bedevilled by a wave of unfit players who regularly break down. Yet players arrive at training camp unfit and are left in the team, rather than being sent home and replaced by fitter less 'talented' players.

The blame is put on the fact that West Indies players do not play county cricket any more but, the players who made this region famous were first class players before they went to English Counties.

They did not become first class because they went to the counties. Think of the number of Aussie and Indian or South African players who have never played county cricket.

They play first class cricket in their countries and our great players, Headley, The W's never played County cricket.

West Indies Cricket must be restructured to the needs of West Indies cricketers. How important is the first class game here? No player can make a commitment to local cricket when he is paid so poorly for playing for his country.

There are too few matches in the local first class calendar and they are nearly all without the Test players.

* This column first appeared in the Trinidad Guardian newspaper.