The team must be celebrated

by VANEISA BAKSH

"The good thing about it is that the team fought all the way to the end," said Courtney Walsh commentating during the last few minutes of the second Test match against South Africa.

It was fulfilment of the wish expressed by West Indies Cricket Board president Julian Hunte in his Christmas Day letter to the team:

"They want to know that if we go down it must be to a superior team and that we go down fighting. There is no shame in losing, the shame is when you do not put out or give of your best," he had written.

The letter was realistic and got right to the heart of the matter that has troubled West Indians about their cricket team for long years. And so, despite losing the second, the West Indian performance so far in the series has earned the team respect they have scarcely held.

A series considered predictably lost against a team second in world ranking did not titillate, but after the first match revealed a hitherto submerged fighting spirit, curiosity was piqued. Having shown that they could sustain their momentum past one inning, one day, the question was whether they could go past one game.

The most encouraging element of the second match was the continued resoluteness that was displayed all around. Although there were slippages, particularly in misfielding, it would be churlish to expect a team that has been mired in blatant nonchalance that sometimes seems a defence against self-doubt to suddenly achieve excellence without a process. That would be to disrespect what it entails to attain excellence in the first place.

So the team must be celebrated as a unit for what it has so far accomplished in South Africa. The third and final Test promises to be a real contest, something that has been missing from West Indies cricket. There has been an almost schizophrenic approach, where the team dominates a session and then collapses without demur in another.

They did not give up the fight at any point (except when they faced Graeme Smith's onslaught without Fidel Edwards), and that is what people want. The lack of commitment to the end is the element that has caused the most pain to supporters. It has suggested that it did not matter enough to these representatives of a people that even if they cannot deliver they should stand.

Shivnarine Chanderpaul was the epitome of resoluteness. He dug in, as Cricinfo delightfully reported, "as deeply as a skyscraper's foundations" and would not budge, giving new purpose to normally transient partners like Jerome Taylor and Edwards.

Chris Gayle was the portrait of heroism. After having his left thumb fractured by Andre Nel, and nursing an injured hamstring, he returned as last warrior, blasting the ball to boundaries in a massive show of power and grit that was indeed a leader's performance.

Though it did not save the match, it dignified its continuation as a contest. It was reminiscent of the broken thumb performance by Malcolm Marshall in July 1984 at Headingley. Marshall too had come in all bandaged up as the last man, and though he batted one-handed long enough for Larry Gomes to complete a century, it was the measure of the man that he came back to take seven for 53, bowling with both his accustomed speed and swing.

Hunte had written: "I have seen the pride gradually being restored and the fighting spirit return. I have seen signs of a resurgence of our cricket," adding that he believed they had what it takes, but the 11 on the field needed to believe that too.

Perhaps they are now beginning to.

* This column is republished with permission from the Barbados Nation, where it first appeared.