It's Time for Unprecedented Changes

I do not think that many West Indian supporters were pleased that the West Indies were beaten 4-0, the first ?White Wash? by an English cricket team over the West Indies since 1928. Many would have preferred to have lost their arms than to lose to England this way. None of us will ever live that down in our lifetimes.

However, I doubt that many realistically expected the West Indies to come back in the series after being 2-0 down, despite the break in the schedule, and despite the fact that the West Indies normally plays better in the latter part of a series. There simply were too many gaping holes in the performances of the team during the Test summer in England.

There have been many calls for the removal of Brian Lara as captain of the team. Since the West Indies do not play another Test match until April 01, 2005, I would wager that the captaincy will be given then to either Chris Gayle or Ramnaresh Sarwan, as the West Indies has some time to regroup and to understand its position in the Test cricket world. The only direction from here must be up and now is as good a time as any to start over!!

The time is now too for the powers of West Indies cricket to really be objective with the team?s situation and to forget the insularity that has so haunted, molded and even, at times, almost destroyed us. Maybe they could take a leaf from the Olympics. The Caribbean has done fairly well, and we all should be very proud of George Bovell III, for his bronze swimming medal, and the efforts of the others too.

If the powers of West Indies cricket, indeed, every West Indian supporter, were not ashamed with the performances of the team in England, then they will never be ashamed. This is not about support, since most in the Caribbean support the West Indies cricket team, but of being very practical. The series against England was very poor, perhaps the poorest cricket played by the West Indies cricket team ever; certainly the poorest in a decade, a decade that included ?White Washes? against Pakistan, New Zealand, South Africa and Australia. As one very influential and intellectual friend once suggested, ?When you thought that the West Indies cricket team had hit ?rock bottom?, you then realize that they somehow manage to move ?rock bottom? even lower still?.

Most suggest that the present West Indies cricket team is a poor team. I beg to differ. There is much talent in the Caribbean and in the present team. Most of these present players have either made a century or had five wickets in a Test match innings, which suggests that they are good enough to be playing at that level. The cohesiveness and where-with-all are missing. There seems to be no purpose to the play. That could only have come from a lack of proper leadership, on and off of the field, and a lack of the right psychological efforts, either natural or artificial, to succeed. Success is planned, from preparation to activation. Rhetoric and fanciful speeches only wastes so much air.

Another more certain change must be that Gus Logie would be removed as Head Coach of the team. The pure lack of on-field cricketing discipline shown by the team during the English summer was appalling. The observations of the commentators, writers and just cricket fans of the lack of intensity about the West Indies training regimes, and their game-day faces, were just too damming for Logie to survive. Perhaps the most telling was that of Graeme ?Foxy? Fowler, my former Lancashire team-mate and former England opening batsman, doing commentary on Test Match Special: ?You take out what you put in. The West Indies practices were thrash, so they too were thrash!!? This is tough, true, but not new for some West Indies cricket fans. Perhaps now someone somewhere would listen to what some, including me, have been saying for years.

The most worrying aspect of this, though, is that even when the West Indies were dishing out several ?White Washes? during the 70?s and 80?s, not one of the vanquished opponents had been so poor in their efforts for them to earn our disrespect. Each of the vanquished teams was always respected for their fighting efforts. No-one in the cricket world respects the West Indies on-field cricket now, despite the usual patronizing noises that have been present, both from the English cricket team and its press and commentators, since the 2nd Test at Edgbaston. Losing Test series is one situation. Losing your opponents respect is quite another altogether.

None of the West Indian bowlers could really control the batsmen with the basics of bowling ?line and length.? Those attributes simply come from practice. The team?s fielding was as poor as anyone could remember. Gus Logie was quoted as saying that the West Indies cricket team ?plays cricket the West Indian way.? None of the batsmen, except the usual senior guys, who worked hard; Brian Lara, Shiv Chanderpaul, Gayle and Sarwan; seemed to realize that Test cricket is much longer than one innings, despite the encouraging efforts of Dwayne Bravo, Dwayne Smith and even Sylvester Joseph.

I wonder what Gus Logie, as much as a team-mate, friend and even my sometimes room-mate, was referring to, since he could not have been suggesting that the winning teams he had played in looked as poor as the one he coached in England. Yes, West Indian cricket is played with a special flair, but for a team to be a winning one, the basics of the game must be learned, understood and implemented almost always. Flash and the exceptional could then be added.

Unprecedented changes in the on-field efforts of the West Indies should be implemented immediately by the powers of West Indies cricket. Only time will tell if they will be.