Windies short on talent says Richards

DURBAN: Barry Richards, widely regarded as South Africa’s greatest batsman, knocked the proficiency of the West Indies team yesterday as the Caribbean side plunged to an innings defeat in the Second Test against South Africa. Richards said the West Indies team is clearly short of the talent that made it the world’s best team in the late 1970s to early 1990s, but has not shown the level of planning and application to meet world standards. The 58-year-old, who had formed a dominant opening partnership with West Indies batsman Gordon Greenidge while they played for Hampshire in England, said the West Indies are being “outplayed” by a South African side, that is “better” and “disciplined.”

Richards criticised the West Indies’ fielding on the third day of the Second Test when they dropped six catches. “Their fielding was just absolutely atrocious, like under-11s,” he said during CMC’s CricketPlus Lunch-time Show. He added that the batsmen showed little application and had too many “soft” dismissals. The struggling West Indies team, he believes must now show planning, discipline and dedication to make up for the loss of talent they had manyyears ago. “If you’ve got Gordon Greenidge and Desmond Haynes and Viv Richards and people like that, then it doesn’t matter how you play the cricket you’re always going to be hard to beat — when you have enough talent, but when you haven’t, then you’ve got to play to a plan and they are certainly not doing that,” he said.

He also spoke of the confidence missing from the current side that the former West Indies teams had. “They were always a very, very confident side. I think one of their trademarks is that they were always able to carry things off because of their confidence,” he said. Richards said there was little hope for the West Indies to fight back in the series but he believes they can improve their showing if they work on their weak areas. “They certainly can improve. One of the areas of course is the fielding, the other one is body language. Body language counts for a lot because it sends a message to the other team. “On quite a few occasions they’ve been quite lackadaisical and that also encourages the South Africans quite considerably,” said Richards, Wisden’s 1969 “Cricketer of the Year.”