Fresh Hope for Windies after England Tests

Given West Indies’ decline as a Test force has been 20 years in the making, it may be unwise to say that Saturday’s 2-1 series loss in England means they have “turned a corner”.

“I’ve heard it so many times and it’s always the same old story,” said fast bowling great Michael Holding, a key member of West Indies’ allconquering teams of the mid 1970s and early 1980s.

“Have we turned the corner? We’ve turned about 40 corners since the year 2000,” added Holding, now a television commentator.

The lack of first-class infrastructure once disguised by a seemingly unending supply of world-class talent that saw the likes of Gordon Greenidge, Desmond Haynes, Malcolm Marshall and Joel Garner — and they were just from Barbados alone — bestride the world game, eventually hurt West Indies’ Test fortunes.

More recently, the rise of lucrative Twenty20 events including the Caribbean Premier League — this year’s edition clashed with the Tests in England — has meant players can earn huge sums of money without having to first play in the five-day game.

West Indies arrived in England without the likes of Chris Gayle and Marlon Samuels who, as a result of a thaw in a bitter dispute between Caribbean cricket chiefs and senior players, will be featuring in the upcoming one-day leg of the tour.

Shai Hope led the way in Leeds by scoring two hundreds — his first Test centuries — only to suffer a ninewicket defeat, again inside three days, at Lord’s.

Before the first Test, Hope averaged a modest 19.57 and had scored just 372 runs in 10 previous Tests. By the end of the series, in which he was the highest scorer on either side with 375 runs, his average had shot up to 31.12.