Butcher tells Windies to play ‘draw cricket’

A HIGHLY-QUALIFIED coach who was once interested in coaching the West Indies, is encouraging the regional side to play “draw cricket” if they want to end a depressing sequence of defeats. Roland Butcher, the first Caribbean-born player to play Test cricket for England, also believes a lack of self-belief in winning currently exists in the team. After crashing to a third successive Test defeat to England to extend a miserable losing streak, Barbados-born Butcher, the holder of an advanced coaching certificate for 25 years, said the intention now should simply be to avoid defeat. “It may go against the grain of how West Indians like to see cricket played, but in the interim, it’s got to be the way,” Butcher told NATIONSPORT at the end of a short visit to the island. “West Indies have got to play a brand of cricket that is going to stop the opposition winning and then in the future, when you get a bit of confidence, then you can start thinking about winning.”

The latest defeat by England is the second successive series against Michael Vaughan’s men in which West Indies enter the final Test trying to avoid a whitewash. It also extended their losing record to a whopping 32 defeats in 60 matches since the start of 2000. Their overseas record is even more statistically gloomy – 29 defeats in 39 matches since 1997. “They are trying hard, trying their best, but the big problem is that there isn’t a lot of belief in the side,” Butcher said. “Perhaps there isn’t belief in their own ability. There is no belief in the team being able to win. When there is belief, you feel that you can climb mountains. It’s difficult to get belief if you are losing all the time.” There are many who believe the current crop of players may be lacking the talent, but Butcher feels they should be persisted with.

“You’ve got to try and stick with the players, give them the best opportunity and hope that out of all of this, they learn,” he said. “If they keep making the same mistake over and over again, that’s a major problem. “It’s a learning curve for the young players. With the exception of one or two, they have found it pretty hard.” Butcher, who played three Tests for England on their 1981 tour of the Caribbean, identified a number of factors for the West Indies’ decline, a downward movement that started back in 1995. Firstly, he pointed to a lack of planning for the future when West Indies were dominating world cricket in the 1980s. He also touched on the lack of opportunities in the English county circuit these days, a problem which has been generated by a cutback on overseas players and a packed international calendar. A lack of proper coaching at varying levels was another problem he cited.