2004: A Year of Chaos

(Trinidad Guardian)

West Indies cricket, in 2004, has been in the wars -- on the field and off the field.

The year began with West Indies being hammered in South Africa and everybody criticised the team -- the players who were at best inconsistent (bar Lara), the coach, who seemed too relaxed and laid back for the Anglos and the South Africans, accustomed to overtly strenuous effort and military discipline.

It continued when England came to the Caribbean to win a series for the first time since 1968. They won 3-0 and, but for Lara?s 400, may well have whitewashed the Windies in their own backyard, an event that has never happened before.

The depths were plumbed when England whitewashed the Windies in the English summer but that was the darkest hour before the dawn.

The unexpected victory in the ICC Champions Trophy series, (Windies were quoted at 100-1 to win by the English bookmakers at the start of the tournament), was built on the adherence to basics and a new-found self belief. The efforts of the coach were not noted when the team was winning!

The Windies played the quality of cricket that was expected of Test players. With a new team spirit, an apparent joy in playing the game, the team swamped all comers.

Before the tour was over, while his contract had more than nine months to run, it was announced that Gus Logie was no longer the coach. Talk about bad timing!

On January 1, 2004, the West Indies began the Third Test in South Africa, having been beaten in the previous two. The match ended in a draw. South Africa, with four centuries in its innings, scored 867 runs for the loss of 13 wickets. Windies replied with 781 for the loss of 15 wickets and had four centuries in the innings, including one by debutant Dwayne Smith.

Dave Mohammed took three wickets for 112 runs in 35 overs on his debut and scored 36 runs. He has not played another Test.

South Africa won the final in a canter. They made 604 for six wickets in the first innings and 46 without loss after dismissing the Windies for 301 and 348. West Indies regularly went for four runs per over. In the series, Windies bowled 770 overs for 2,962 runs and 44 wickets, poor strike rate ? a wicket every 92 balls. There were 48 wides and 81 no-balls in the analysis.

Lara scored 531 runs at 66.37 per innings. Next best was Chris Gayle, who had improved his consistency and scored 366 runs in three Tests at 61 per innings. Sarwan had two centuries in his 392 runs in eight innings.

England came and looking at the teams practising one would have been excused for thinking that the West Indies were the English team but for their colour.

Here was an English team with fast bowlers more than six feet four inches tall, players strong and athletic as opposed to the Windies with their, comparatively puny fast bowlers, and a team generally looking physically inferior to the English.

The English established their superiority immediately, winning the First Test by ten wickets after dismissing the Windies for 47 in the second innings?an all time low for the Windies in the Caribbean. Harmisson and Hoggard were on the way to establishing an ascendancy over the West Indies batting that would not be loosened until the final Test. Harmisson dismissed Lara three times in six innings in which he scored only 100 runs. Only in the final Test, when he reclaimed his world record with an innings of 400 not out, did he get out from under the domination of the bowlers.

The other batsmen were not much better, Ridley Jacobs with 277 innings from seven innings was the best. Only three centuries were recorded by the Windies batsmen.

The Windies bowling again left much to be desired. England scored 2005 for loss of 40 wickets and the Windies? bowlers sent down 44 wides and 90 no-balls. The following tour, Bangladesh in the Caribbean was expected to bring some much?needed relief to the Windies. Instead, it emphasised how far down the ladder the team had slipped.

Windies were pushed to defeat the minnows in the ODI?s and though the Test series was comfortably won, the Bangladeshis could take some pride from the fact that they made the home team struggle to win. In the first match, number nine, Mohammad Raffique, whose best score prior to that had been in the teens, scored a century and the last three wickets added 166 runs. Number eight, Khaled Mashud scored 103 runs in the second innings.

Windies made amends in the second match, winning by an innings and 99 runs. Pedro Collins took nine for 117 in the match and Windies, spurred by Sarwan?s 261 not out, scored 559 for three wickets, as Lara and Chanderpaul hit centuries. Still a worry were 61 no?balls in two matches.

The trip to England saw the Windies again under pressure. The English quickies, Harmison, Hoggard and Flintoff took 17, 16 and 14 wickets respectively but Ashley Giles, crafty slow left armer, took 22 wickets to expose the batting as fallible to any good bowling. In the four Tests, England scored 2,138 runs for 57 wickets while West Indies scored 2,279 for 80 wickets. Giles (twice) and Harmison took five wickets or more in an innings for England, while Gayle and Bravo did the trick for the Windies.

There was some joy for the West Indies. Dwayne Bravo appeared on the scene and fit in as to the manor born. He was the most economical of the bowlers and his fielding was a joy to behold in a team who had suffered during the summer.

The ODI?s had offered rays of hope during the year.

In South Africa, Ravi Rampaul appeared and bowled with considerable promise, dragging the Windies to within an ace of squaring the series at Johannesburg, only for some disgraceful fielding in the last over of the match to let them off the hook. South Africa won that series 3-1 with one match abandoned.

Against England in the Caribbean, rain played havoc with the ODIs, three being abandoned, two without a ball being bowled. The series was shared 2-2.

The Windies in England were a revelation. Gone was the hang-dog appearance in the field. The brilliance and athletic enthusiasm of Bravo was outstanding and infectious. The calm control of Courtney Brown, whose cause Lara had for long been championing, was a strong influence in the field and absolutely essential in the last winning effort at the Oval.

One of the main strengths of the Windies in that series was the brilliant fielding and the remarkably disciplined bowling. The entire series saw the Windies conceding two wides in the preliminaries and very few wides or no-balls during the series.

What was the secret that caused such a radical improvement? It limited the burden on the team, as bowlers were more economical and batsmen under less pressure, having to chase smaller totals.

The year ends with the WICB and WIPA in eyeball to eyeball confrontation, neither giving an inch and, even with the intervention of Grenada?s PM, Dr Keith Mitchell and the arbitration of Mr Justice Adrian Saunders, things are still very shaky.

A team has been announced for Australia but with a strange change of vice-captain and the rumour of intervention by a Guyanese board member, pushing for the change so that when Digicel makes it intolerable for the current captain to stay in the post, they will have a man who went to the camp when most of the players heeded WIPA?s advice.

Is the day imminent when a sponsor decides who plays for the West Indies? The time is now for a radical shake-up in the make-up, the constitution and the selection of the West Indies Cricket Board and all the Boards in the various territories.

* This article appears by special arrangement with the Trinidad Guardian.