Message Board Archives

Fightbacks have been the feature of Windies Test cricket in recent years and hence it came as no surprise that they had a few rabbits to pull out of their hat in the second Test against India in Hyderabad. Roston Chase and Jason Holder led Windies' revival after they had been reduced to 182 for six, helping the team post a total in excess of 300. The spinners helped the visitors stage a strong comeback after a fiery start from Prithvi Shaw, although Ajinkya Rahane and Rishabh Pant tilted the balance in India's favour with their century stand. On Day 3, with the hosts looking at a sizeable lead, it looked like the game would get out of Windies' grasp. But Holder had other ideas, engineering an Indian collapse in collaboration with Shannon Gabriel. But there was only so much the Windies could fight as their familiar woes with the batting resurfaced, one that ensured the Test match would get over on the third day after the initial promise of lasting the distance.

see also Holders dream year with the ball

The ESPNcricinfo article attached to this report is very interesting

It was just last night a blogger on this sight suggested that the only thing that was certain in WI would not lose in three days. Well as I expected they lost in three days. I think that's a NEW low for a test team to bat a day plus in first inning and scored over 300 runs, only to lose the test in 3days by ten wickets. Can we ever get any lower than this?

The record will suggest that we lost the test in three days but in reality we lost before a ball was being bowled, when the Indian selectors tricked us with their two fast bowlers to give the impression that it was going to be a spinners wicket. We were tricked and played two fast bowlers and surprisingly left out Kemar Roach, our best and most experience bowler with 163 test wickets. It was the Indian fast bowler Umesh Yadav that took 10 wickets and wrecked us, while for us it was Holder with 5 wickets and Gabriel with 3 wickets that took a combined 8 out of 10 wickets while Bishoo once again was not even a factor

In reply to Sylobeauty

Very good observations, I am still in shock that the WI lost the match in three days, I thought they would at least be competitive in this Test. It was a big mistake not to include the best and most experience bowler in the Test, Roach. The Selectors are just as substandard and inconsistent as the Team on the field.

I said it before and will say again that our current selectors don't seem to be following our cricket and they don't know and understand our history. I feel they select a team based on who they hear in the Rum shop should be on the team instead of picking a team based on history, knowledge of the condition and performance. It was in 1972 after declaring and set India 407 to win, on a turning Port of Spain wicket and we played three very good spinners in Padmore, Intiaz Ali and Jumadeen India went on to beat us by 6 wickets. It was after that beating Clive Lloyd vowed to lose with pacers instead of spinners. It was that defeat that gave birth to our 4 crown pace attack. 46 years later we playing in India with two pacers, dropping our most experience bowler in Kemar Roach, 2 spinners, including Bishoo that sure would not be able to get my 10 year old daughter out and we expect to win?

The team selected for the Indian tour was a shocker to say the least. Where on earth they were going with 4 wicket keepers that can't bowl an over for us, and left out Jermain Blackwood, whose batting average of 30.09 in test is only 2nd to Brathwaite since Hope and Holder have the same 30. average? Blackwood had scores of 95 against Pakistan and 92 against Sri Lanka, both in the subcontinent where conditions are the same. Since condition in India is very familiar to that of Trinidad, Jason Mohammed would have been a better pick than that of Hamilton and both he and Blackwood along with Chase could help us play 1 spinner and 4 pacers since Holder is a Batsman. I also felt Miguel Cummins and Raymon Reifer would have made more sense than Paul and Lewis.

Would it have made a difference though if Roach played? I mean it was really the batting that failed miserably in this game just as it did in the last game.