The music of "Force Ripe," the number one sound system in Guyana, could not soothe the pain of another hopeless, uninspiring, spiritless, and shamefully disappointing performance by the West Indies against Sri Lanka. With the loss to South Africa last Tuesday, their fourth consecutive of the Super Eight, West Indies have all but been eliminated from the semifinals.
So what is this malaise that seems to paralyze West Indies cricket? Mind you, this is not about West Indies losing, but rather the manner in which they have played time and again. Let's face it; there are teams in this tournament that are no more talented than the West Indians yet have demonstrated a collective resolve and a self belief that are so often missing from the West Indies game.
I think it is amazing that only when the West Indies cricket team embarrasses the region that we start scrambling about looking for solutions for the problems, which have been around for the last fifteen years.
The root of the problem has been the WICB, period.
Lendl Simmons may have been as surprised as everyone else when he was included in the West Indies team to play against New Zealand in Antigua . Selected to bat at number 8, the 22 year old from Trinidad was left last man standing after the team's main batsmen failed to challenge the bowlers.
Two days before the West Indies was crushed by South Africa in Grenada, Simmons told CaribbeanCricket.com that playing in the 2007 World Cup was literally a dream come true for him. It all started with a shooting star..
It would be grossly unfair to lay the blame squarely on the shoulders of captain Brian Lara for the West Indies poor showing in the Super Eights segment of the 2007 World Cup.
But there is no doubt that his captaincy leaves more questions than answers. And following the West Indies most recent defeat against South Africa, cricinfo.com, in its report on the match, puts it this way:
Not more than three months after the historic tied Test at the Gabba in Brisbane, Australia, CLR James would aggressively insist that Frank Worrell should not be named captain for the tour of England scheduled for 1963.
Worrell had been made captain for the 1960-61 tour to Australia and his appointment had been even more aggressively sought by the same CLR James, who had campaigned long and strenuously through the pages of The Nation, party paper of the People's National Movement, which he edited.
