Roberts: WI players lack commitment

Roberts, who was inducted on Saturday night in cricket's Hall of Fame in Hartford, Connecticut, bemoaned today's cricketers' lack of physical conditioning and training.

"As I watched the West Indies team over the past 10 years, I saw the decline of inspiration, decline of commitment, gut feeling, and love for the game," he said during his acceptance speech after induction.

"I don't think that our players of today love the game half as much as the past players did."

Roberts, who was part of the menacing West Indies pace bowling quartet in the 1980s that also involved Michael Holding, Colin Croft and Joel Garner, said that unlike most of today's fast bowlers, he spent at least three hours a day of training, or most time playing the game, with hardly any injury.

"It is common practice today, the majority of our fast bowlers, if they play two consecutive Test matches, then they can't play a third," Roberts said, blaming fast bowlers' breakdown primarily on lack of fitness and dedication to the sport.

Roberts lamented the Caribbean side's rapid decline, and urged current players to fully commit themselves to return the team to the zenith of world cricket.

"Do you know how I wish for the glory days of West Indies cricket to be back?" he asked rhetorically.

"I pray for cricketers to strive harder, to work harder, and be more consistent in their performances, so that we can regain the top spot in international cricket.

"The talent is there, but the players must be reminded that success is only one per cent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration."

He continued: "They must realise cricket is a team game, and the players must learn to fuse their efforts. To attain this, we must do all we can to get a team together, so we can return to the top."

Roberts urged the West Indies to copy the efforts of the English cricket team, whose recent success after decades of relative mediocre performances, is said to be based on serious planning and development.

"We thought we could remain at the top for 50 years," he said. "We never thought we could have slid. I knew we were going to slide, but I never knew we were going to slide this far. And it's deep into the pit that we have dug ourselves in."

Tony Becca, the retired Jamaica Gleaner sports editor, who was also inducted into the Cricket Hall of Fame, agreed with Roberts.

"The problem is dedication," he said. "The cricketer of today is not as dedicated as the ones earlier, like Andy Roberts and Wes Hall, and so on."

Former Indian leg-spin bowler Bhagwat Chandrasekar, and West Indian-born cricket organisers in the United States— Alvin Watson (posthumously) and Barbara Lindo of Connecticut, and Carlyle Miller of New York— were also inducted in the prestigious Hall of Fame.

The ceremony, which took place at the Marriott Hotel, downtown Hartford, attracted a large cross-section of the cricketing fraternity and fans in the United States.

Roberts snatched 202 wickets in 47 Test matches at an average of 25.61 apiece. He also grabbed 87 limited-overs international wickets at an average of 20.35.

With a lethal bouncer, Roberts, now aged 54, took less than two and a half years to attain 100 Test wickets, the quickest at that time.

"He was a very intelligent cricketer, who plotted and planned the downfall of batsmen, as if it were a military campaign," the organising committee said in its citation.

Roberts joins an elite group of former international cricketers, who have been inducted in the Cricket Hall of Fame.

The list includes the late George Headley, Alfred Valentine, and Sir Conrad Hunte, as well as cricketing knights Garfield Sobers, Frank Worrell, Everton Weekes, Clyde Walcott, and Vivian Richards.

Also included are from West Indies include Lance Gibbs, Wes Hall, Clive Lloyd, Alvin Kallicharran, Joel Garner, and Michael Holding.