Test cricket gone with the Windies

AFTER Australia’s lop-sided victories over the West Indies in the two Tests in Dominica and Jamaica earlier this month, a foreboding headline appeared in the Melbourne Age over a piece by its chief sports columnist, Greg Baum.

‘Test cricket: Gone with the Windies’, it read. It reflected doubts in Australia over whether the West Indies would be able to meaningfully compete in their three Tests there in December and January. The concern concentrated on the traditional, back-to-back matches at Australia’s two most iconic grounds.

“All at Cricket Australia are increasingly twitchy about the fact that next summer’s show-piece Boxing Day and New Year’s Test matches are due to be played against the West Indies ,” Baum reported.

“It will be a most painful return to the scene of past glories for support staff such as (head coach Phil) Simmons, (manager) Richie Richardson and (bowling consultant) Curtly Ambrose, and more pointedly an event where history and nostalgia will be expected to draw crowds to grounds and television sets when the cricket itself now looks incapable of doing so,” he added.

Read the full article at Trinidad Express