Cricket Order After CWC 2007 - Part 2, West Indies
I write this on a day when England were thoroughly thrashed by South Africa in a virtual Quarter Final, and were hence knocked out of the tournament. Of course they are still to play one insignificant game, but that is not the point. SA, like the other three semi-finalists have played exceptional cricket to reach the semi-final. With England being knocked out, there will be cries for the removal of Vaughan and Duncan Fletcher, and as I had noted in my previous post, they are quite legitimate calls.
In this post, we shall focus on West Indies and what needs to be done to reinstate their old glory. Of course, I have never been close to West Indian cricket, so this post is more an outside view looking into the problems facing West Indian cricket.
The thing that worried me the most about WI cricket up until last year was that after Brian Lara's debut, they never had anyone with huge batting talent, and after Walsh retired, they never really had anyone with huge bowling talent. However, those worries seemed to ease last year, when India toured WI in 2006. A few players stood out - Dwayne Bravo, Dwayne Smith, Jerome Taylor, Marlon Samuels.
The WI won the ODI series 4-1 and the young brigade had come to the party big time. Seeing the current talent, one cannot fault WI for lack of talent, which is why their performance at the current WC was a total flop show. As much as I analyze their performance, the only two possible explanations that I can come up with are - one - they are not disciplined enough, which could stem from a lot of things: cultural, not being committed enough to the cause (in this case winning the WC), not playing as a team - there could be a plethora of reasons, it's just that I am not too close to the team to understand them completely. (By the way, a lot of WI sports writers do write about the above reasons, so I am guessing that there must be some truth in them). The second reason could be that they are inexperienced, which they are. I believe this is a young team, and playing in front of home crowds, they could not live up to the expectations of the WI crowds. Happens to the best of teams at the best of time - in fact no team has been able to win a WC on home soil (we will discount Sri Lanka, they did not win the 1996 WC final in Colombo).
So which one of the above is the real reason for their failure? Or is it something completely different? I am guessing, it is an amalgamation of all of the above and a few others too. WI are definitely in-disciplined, are not committed, aloof to the cause and the team as well. Apart from the above, the other thing that we keep hearing about is how the WICB interacts with the players: payments are always an issues as are the central contracts. Such an environment is not condusive for success.
I believe the following should happen for the WI to become a very good team. Just like England, they have a core set of players - Sarwan, Gayle, D. Smith, D. Bravo, Marlon Samuels, Jerome Taylor, Fidel Edwards around whom they can build for the future. I believe talent has not been the problem, but the fact that they are aloof and indifferent has been. As much as the great players of the past keep harping that playing for the WI should be motivation enough, I believe that it is an issue. Not everyone seems to be worried about the fact that WI is an identity - and not very different from their own country. I believe, to get over that, what the WI need to do is, get a good manager in place and undertake some bonding sessions (just like the Australians did by going to the bush). The other thing that needs to happen is, and this happens with a few players who are extremely talented and everything comes easy to them, they don't seem to work hard on their gifts. I think WICB has to come down heavily upon players if they don't follow a set regime and display bad work ethics. The WI players need to be taught how to be professionals, I think they are not good professionals. Maybe one way to do that would be to give them bonuses based on performance. The other thing that I strongly believe in is that there needs to be a strong board, a competitive board, a transparent board for cricket to flourish in the region. Just like in India, where the BCCI can do away with politicians, so could the WICB. Again, please note that politicians don't necessarily mean officers of the government or members of parliament, but people who worry too much about posts and the money associated with that post. I think, when people who have nothing but the best for WI cricket at heart are put in the right positions, then such people will make the best possible decisions for the players and the game in general. They will also make sure that the sport doesn't die a premature death in the region, but the flames of passion are fanned through out. The last thing that we talked about was inexperience, and the only way you can do away with inexperience is by playing more. The good thing about WI, unlike other minnows (I am not sure if we call them minnows anymore after the showing of Ireland and Bangladesh in the current WC) is that they have more quality players than Ireland and/or Bangladesh and should be able to win more matches than either of those two and return to winning ways a more easily.
Again, let's not forget a strong WI is very important for the good of cricket. Next week, we will focus on Pakistan. Once again, it will be an outsider's view looking inside on the side on how to help Pakistan be strong again.
Till then, leave your comments.
Dhaval Brahmbhatt
In this post, we shall focus on West Indies and what needs to be done to reinstate their old glory. Of course, I have never been close to West Indian cricket, so this post is more an outside view looking into the problems facing West Indian cricket.
The thing that worried me the most about WI cricket up until last year was that after Brian Lara's debut, they never had anyone with huge batting talent, and after Walsh retired, they never really had anyone with huge bowling talent. However, those worries seemed to ease last year, when India toured WI in 2006. A few players stood out - Dwayne Bravo, Dwayne Smith, Jerome Taylor, Marlon Samuels.
The WI won the ODI series 4-1 and the young brigade had come to the party big time. Seeing the current talent, one cannot fault WI for lack of talent, which is why their performance at the current WC was a total flop show. As much as I analyze their performance, the only two possible explanations that I can come up with are - one - they are not disciplined enough, which could stem from a lot of things: cultural, not being committed enough to the cause (in this case winning the WC), not playing as a team - there could be a plethora of reasons, it's just that I am not too close to the team to understand them completely. (By the way, a lot of WI sports writers do write about the above reasons, so I am guessing that there must be some truth in them). The second reason could be that they are inexperienced, which they are. I believe this is a young team, and playing in front of home crowds, they could not live up to the expectations of the WI crowds. Happens to the best of teams at the best of time - in fact no team has been able to win a WC on home soil (we will discount Sri Lanka, they did not win the 1996 WC final in Colombo).
So which one of the above is the real reason for their failure? Or is it something completely different? I am guessing, it is an amalgamation of all of the above and a few others too. WI are definitely in-disciplined, are not committed, aloof to the cause and the team as well. Apart from the above, the other thing that we keep hearing about is how the WICB interacts with the players: payments are always an issues as are the central contracts. Such an environment is not condusive for success.
I believe the following should happen for the WI to become a very good team. Just like England, they have a core set of players - Sarwan, Gayle, D. Smith, D. Bravo, Marlon Samuels, Jerome Taylor, Fidel Edwards around whom they can build for the future. I believe talent has not been the problem, but the fact that they are aloof and indifferent has been. As much as the great players of the past keep harping that playing for the WI should be motivation enough, I believe that it is an issue. Not everyone seems to be worried about the fact that WI is an identity - and not very different from their own country. I believe, to get over that, what the WI need to do is, get a good manager in place and undertake some bonding sessions (just like the Australians did by going to the bush). The other thing that needs to happen is, and this happens with a few players who are extremely talented and everything comes easy to them, they don't seem to work hard on their gifts. I think WICB has to come down heavily upon players if they don't follow a set regime and display bad work ethics. The WI players need to be taught how to be professionals, I think they are not good professionals. Maybe one way to do that would be to give them bonuses based on performance. The other thing that I strongly believe in is that there needs to be a strong board, a competitive board, a transparent board for cricket to flourish in the region. Just like in India, where the BCCI can do away with politicians, so could the WICB. Again, please note that politicians don't necessarily mean officers of the government or members of parliament, but people who worry too much about posts and the money associated with that post. I think, when people who have nothing but the best for WI cricket at heart are put in the right positions, then such people will make the best possible decisions for the players and the game in general. They will also make sure that the sport doesn't die a premature death in the region, but the flames of passion are fanned through out. The last thing that we talked about was inexperience, and the only way you can do away with inexperience is by playing more. The good thing about WI, unlike other minnows (I am not sure if we call them minnows anymore after the showing of Ireland and Bangladesh in the current WC) is that they have more quality players than Ireland and/or Bangladesh and should be able to win more matches than either of those two and return to winning ways a more easily.
Again, let's not forget a strong WI is very important for the good of cricket. Next week, we will focus on Pakistan. Once again, it will be an outsider's view looking inside on the side on how to help Pakistan be strong again.
Till then, leave your comments.
Dhaval Brahmbhatt
posted by dhaval brahmbhatt at 4/17/2007 09:55:00 PM
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