West Indies Cricket Again

EDITOR: Once again West Indies cricket has angered many loyal fans. The white wash as bad as it is, is not the main issue, but the way how we lost without any fight at all from the batters. And to add insult to injury to be bundled out for 27 runs in less than 20 overs is indeed very, very embarrassing.

Even those who were expecting a white wash were not expecting such embarrassing performances by the batters. I am a supporter of West Indies cricket and I had no problem having Sammy as the coach, but he has received, and continues to receive heavy criticism. I personally, would put some blame on him, both as a coach and a selector.

As we may know he (Sammy) is the Chief Selector. So, I lay at his feet, the poor selection of the batters. It has baffled many, the selection of the batters. The bowlers did a fantastic job and bowled with fire and purpose and then had to turn around and bat. There are times when they even did better batting than the batters.

We cannot put the blame on the
bowlers but at the feet of the batters.
But come to think of it, as I mentioned
earlier, the wrong batters were selected. Here, we have batsmen who went to
Australia and performed and were able to tie the series yet those batters, with the exception of Brathwaite and Greaves, were not selected. Instead some white ball batters, who from watching lacked the techniques and both mental and technical skills.

Of course, you might argue that we would have gotten white wash anyway. While I can give you the benefit of the doubt, the possibility exists based on previous performances that had it been those who played before these crops of batters that they would have given a better performance and a fight. These batsmen looked lost as to how to play Test Cricket. Yes, we know that they were up against arguably the best bowling attack, but they seem not to be able to cope with pace attack of the Australians.

Maybe they were accustomed to bat short periods and not long periods. That is why, lots of blame must be placed at the feet of coach, Sammy who replaced batters with batters who are accustomed to T20 and ODI.

Tag Chanderpaul, Hodge, Athanaze, Josh DaSilva – were amongst those who gave a much better performance at batting than these who played in the just concluded series.

Our bowling has improved by leaps and bounds, but our batting has a very long way to go. It would be interesting to see the composition of the next team that would be selected to play. Time will tell.

Kennard King