Perreira knocks WI strategy

BRIDGETOWN: Experienced commentator Joseph “Reds” Perreira has knocked the West Indies selection strategy following the team’s first-round exit from the Cricket World Cup (CWC) 2003.

The West Indies finished fourth in the Pool “B” standings with a record of  three wins, two defeats and a no-result (rain-ruined) match against Bangladesh, and Perreira believes the Caribbean side employed bad strategy, playing an extra batsman. “I thought the balance of the side was wrong,” Perreira said during CMC’s CricketPlus broadcast of the India/Sri Lanka CWC 2003 game on Monday. “The bowling was always going to be difficult for captain (Carl) Hooper to handle because he just needed one of his top bowlers to have a bad night and he is in tremendous trouble,” Perreira said.

The West Indies were eliminated primarily because of defeats in key matches against New Zealand and Sri Lanka, fixtures in which the batsmen failed to attain gettable targets of 242 (New Zealand) and 229 (Sri Lanka). But those targets were also stretched as the West Indies attack — with only three specialist bowlers — was unable to push home the advantage after ripping through their opponents’ middle order.

Labouring at 188 for seven in the 44th over, the Kiwis rallied behind unbeaten knocks from Brendon McCullum (36) and Andre Adams (35) to add a further 53 runs, and the Sri Lankans got unfinished late innings knocks from Russell Arnold (34) and number eight batsman Chaminda Vaas (28) in compiling 228 for six, after they had dipped to 139 for five in the 36th over. “If we played (Jermaine) Lawson, had we played (Corey) Collymore, we could have had the kind of fire power where we could have blown away the New Zealand late order, where we could have stopped, Vaas from just swinging and scoring some effective runs,” Perreira said.

St Lucia-based Perreira, back in the Caribbean after doing radio commentary on the World Cup preliminaries in South Africa, also questioned the team management’s delay in introducing talented middle-order batsman Marlon Samuels and making an adjustment at the top of the batting order when regular openers Chris Gayle and Wavell Hinds proved ineffective in early matches.

Those changes only happened in the last encounter when Chanderpaul was promoted to open and Samuels coming into the side for his first — a comfortable 142-run win over Kenya — when the West Indies had already been eliminated. “We had one decent start (122 runs for the first wicket) and that was in the last match when Gayle and (Shivnarine) Chanderpaul opened. At a certain (earlier) time, an adjustment should have been made in terms of using  Chanderpaul (as opener),” Perreira said. “Marlon Samuels should have come in surely by the Sri Lanka match, Ricardo Powell would have been the one that I would have left out (for Samuels),”  Perreira said. (CMC)