Drawn but glorious

THE WEST INDIES have again lost a Test series against South Africa but, since the reasons for our defeat are now crystal clear, there must be good reason for hope — that is if the regional cricket authorities are serious about remedying our deficiencies. More than anything else, our failure in South Africa was the result of the relative inferiority of our bowling. Throughout the series, the home team were able, on a consistent basis, to amass huge scores against a Windies bowling attack that was quite pedestrian, lacking strategical variation and penetrative ferocity. As a consequence, we found ourselves most often on the defensive, with our batsmen having to reach massive totals either to hold the balance or save the follow on. What a dismal difference to the glory days of West Indies cricket when we dominated the game with a cadre of fast bowlers who never released the pressure and struck fear in the hearts of the world’s best batsmen. Why can’t we produce match-winning bowlers of the calibre of Walsh, Ambrose, Marshall, Holding, Roberts, Croft, Garner and Hall any more? Do we have programmes to nurture that kind of talent from among our promising young players? This weakness in the Windies bowling attack has now become too glaring for us not to tackle it with a positive sense of urgency.

On the other hand, WI cricket fans should be pleased with the general performance of our batsmen who have risen to the occasion. The fact that we were able to hold the high-scoring South Africans to an honourable draw in the third match of the current series, thus avoiding another humiliating whitewash and actually ending a losing streak of seven Tests in that country must be credited to the performance of our batsmen, with Lara, Gayle and newcomer Smith posting centuries and Sarwan adding a valuable 69 in the second innings. Apart from the fact that it was drawn, the Test at Cape Town was significant and historic for a number of delightful reasons. The first, of course, was Lara’s performance with the bat, 112 and 86, which not only reinforced his consistency on this tour but his century also brought him another world record, this time for scoring the fastest 9,000 runs in the history of the game. With only Tendulkar among active players slightly above him, the Windies captain, in fact, is poised to become the leading run-getter among the world’s playing Test batsmen. Then we were thrilled by the spectacular debut of the 20-year-old Barbadian Dwayne Smith whose unbeaten 105 in the second innings not only saved the match for us but brought him the glory of being the second youngest West Indian to score a century on his first Test appearance. When the Jamaican George Headly accomplished this feat more than 60 years ago against England at Kensington he was just days younger than the brilliant Barbadian.

Still, even beyond these statistics, Smith’s unbeaten run- a-minute century was remarkable for the power and mastery of his strokeplay which produced 15 fours and two sixes from 93 deliveries. Smith’s performance also acquires a story-book quality from the fact that he was a virtual nonentity when he joined the team in South Africa as a replacement for the injured Marlon Samuels. Another happy feature of this match was the successful maiden performance of TT’s left arm spinner Dave Mohammed, another replacement, who bagged three for 112. Inspite of the opportunities they provided for Smith and Mohammed, the injuries affecting the Windies have been unacceptably high and so too our horrible fumblings in the field. Something must be lacking in the physical preparation of our players.