The pain of West Indies in Tests
HOPEFULLY, by now, the West Indies would not have lost the second cricket Test match already against New Zealand in that country.
As a lover of the game, sacrificing sleep time is, to borrow a term from golf, par for the course. But when the result at day’s end is constant and consistent beatings, you have to consider how far love ought to go. The thing is, if I end this relationship, I could always get back my lover when improvements are on the horizon, or when they become reality.
But you have to wonder why the people charged with making things happen, positively, in the West Indies camp, appear to be so brainless. I’ve never heard of a dunce excelling in cricket, so we need to determine the ability and competence of the region’s cricketers if things are not to continue to end in disappointment. The team made the same mistake of the recent series against England
— winning tosses and inserting the
opposition only for them to bat the Windies out of the game. Nobody seems to learn.
The habit of continuing with Kraigg Brathwaite and John Campbell as openers has developed into a major disease. And when you look at the batting order it is easy to see why the team cannot make it.
Wicketkeeper Shane Dowrich has been dropping more balls than catching them. His non-selection for the second Test was a blessing.
The bowlers lack an intimate touch
with a coach who can use his own experience and develop their craft. The bowling coach now, Roddy Estwick, should focus on weightlifting or weight losing. Curtly Ambrose and Andy Roberts are waiting. No coach knows it like them.
If Head Coach Phil Simmons is behind some of the decisions we have been seeing, he should simply pack his bags. Desmond Haynes, the logical candidate of all the applicants last year, has to be the man. Too much fooling around has been going on. It has to stop.
The signs were there too, when the Ricky Skerritt administration went for Roger Harper as chairman of selectors — a waste of time. The chairman has tremendous power. Let no one tell you otherwise. But Harper will not take the tough, bold decisions that face him. He will not support the playing of people like Kieron Pollard, Andre Fletcher, Nick Pooran, Andre Russell, Oshane Thomas, Sheldon Cotterell in Test cricket, even if he knows quite well that the dynamics of cricket have changed over time.