Indians land for ‘secondstring’ Windies trip
With most of hosts’ key players missing due to differences with board, fan interest is at an alltime low
While India arrived here as a fractured and harried lot, thanks to Anil Kumble’s resignation and the thrashing by Pakistan in the Champions Trophy final overshadowing an extremely successful season, the hosts too are living on the edge.
On Tuesday, the whole of Port-of-Spain (POS) was drenched in rain with a fierce storm hitting the Capital city of Trinidad and Tobago. POS will host the first two ODIs in a hastily-organised series that was being seen as giving a lifeline to cricket in the Caribbean which has suffered not just due to poor performances of its team -- most recently a loss to Afghanistan -but also the tussle between the players and the board that saw the team pull out of a tour of India in 2014.
That pullout led to financial losses and subsequently the boards are doing their best to minimise the impact.
But such a series, especially at the end of a long and tiring summer for India, is being seen as meaningless, especially with this being the rainy season.
Normally in such a series, the board would have sent a secondstring side or a largely main side but with someone other than Virat Kohli. It has happened before on tours of Zimbabwe and once recently to West Indies.
But big names and big faces is what attracts crowds, keep sponsors smiling and Cricket West Indies is offering discounts on ticket prices and offer on purchases just to boost the sales.
“Indians, especially Virat Kohli and MS Dhoni, have a large following here,” says Gus Logie, former West Indies cricketer and now a coach. “Their presence will guarantee crowd presence.”
However, the larger worry is if weather will allow a full game. As of now, rain is expected to play spoilsport.
Concerns facing India aren’t as grave as those facing West Indies. Their top players are not playing due to differences with the board and the current lot lies 16 points adrift of No. 8 Sri Lanka in ICC ODI rankings, making it tough for them to qualify as direct entrants (among the top eight) for the 2019 World Cup.
They stooped to a new low, losing to Afghanistan in an ODI this month. The disappointment was palpable as far as New York on the check-in counter of a Caribbean Airliner at JFK Airport. The lady at the desk let it fly. “I don’t want to watch them. I’ll watch Pakistan, India or even England, but not them. Afghanistan! Man, they lost to Afghanistan!!! They just began playin’!!!”
Fans here take pride in West Indies cricket’s glorious past. However, those days are gone.
In the lead-up to this series, a match was organised between West Indies and a Trinidad and Tobago team some days back. However, the game had to be called off because the venue was not of standard and there seemed to have been some miscommunication among the stakeholders. Imagine Cricket West Indies messing up on a warm-up to lift the morale of side after the loss to Afghanistan.