West Indies gets needed wake-up call
Defending champs had a rough start to tournament in team’s favoured format
The defending champion West Indies finally won their first match at the T20 cricket World Cup on Friday, a nail-biting three-run victory over struggling Bangladesh in Sharjah, U.A.E.
The West Indies are still alive, but they’re hardly kicking. On paper they are an intimidating team of big-name power hitters. In reality, they have looked stale and past their best.
Chris Gayle, the self-proclaimed Universe Boss and arguably the most fearsome batter in the history of T20 cricket, is a shadow of himself. He looks like an aging boxer now: slow on his feet, but still with a killer hook — if only he could just land more than a couple.
The power might still be there, but the feet don’t move like they used to, and boxing or batting it’s not going to end well when that happens.
Sensitive to criticism before the World Cup began, Gayle took unkindly to West Indies legend and commentator Curtly Ambrose merely suggesting that Gayle wasn’t an automatic selection for the starting 11. Gayle responded that he had “no respect for Curtly Ambrose whatsoever.”
After three matches, Gayle has scored a total of 29 runs off 35 balls.
All three matches have been embarrassments of varying degrees. First came a scarcely believable collapse to England: bowled out for 55, with England chasing down the runs in just eight overs. That was a blow to their confidence. On Tuesday, there was a blow to the soul.
South Africa was reeling from the withdrawal of wicketkeeper and opening batter Quinton de Kock over his refusal to take a knee in an anti-racism gesture before the start of play. A multiracial team with a Black captain, South Africa was rattled by de Kock’s decision and forced at the last minute to slot in a different opening batter, and also replace him behind the wicket. The South African star’s late withdrawal didn’t allow the team to even discuss the reasons for his actions.
The West Indies, leading proponents among cricket nations in raising awareness of racial injustice, could not have been blind to the optics of a white South African player — in a match against a predominantly Black team — refusing to take a knee, regardless of his reasons. Any thoughts that this would light a fire under the West Indies were doused, however, by a wounded South African side that first restricted the West Indies to 143 and then romped home for an eight-wicket win, with two overs to spare.
Two group matches remain in the West Indies’ campaign: against a rising Sri Lanka, in rebuild mode, and Australia, also in the hunt for a semifinal berth and better placed in the standings.
The West Indies were titans of the game for two decades before sliding into the lower rungs of test and one-day international cricket. It is in T20 where they have has sought to restore their glory and standing in the world game, after the retirements of stalwart batters Brian Lara and Shiv Chanderpaul, and fast-bowling greats Ambrose and Courtney Walsh — who bowed out years earlier, initiating the decline.
Gayle could have been in that test class — it is easy to forget he has scored two triple-hundreds: 317 versus South Africa in 2005, and 333 against Sri Lanka in 2010 — but hasn’t played a test match since 2014.
Another T20 star, Andre Russell, who had all the talent to be one of the great all-rounders, has only played one test match, a decade ago.
The West Indies T20 captain, Kieron Pollard, has never played a test match.
So while those in the know, including cricketers who play all three formats, insist that test cricket is the ultimate form of the game, the West Indies have left the test team to a group of honest-triers while the stars have gravitated toward the shorter formats.
The cricket world and West Indies fans have long ago settled for this. But the trade-off has been that the West Indies are expected to set the ground alight at tournaments such as the T20 World Cup.
They might scrape out another win, but their reign as champion will end at this tournament. It might just be the kick that West Indies cricket needs.