WI players under investigation

KINGSTON: Cricket fans and newspapers across the Caribbean expressed shock and embarrassment yesterday with the West Indies’ record low innings of 47 which allowed England to win the opening Cable and Wireless Test by ten wickets. “How much lower can it get? How much more can Caribbean people take?” The Daily Nation of Barbados asked in a front-page article headlined “WRECKORD.” “It was humiliating,” the paper said. “It was another sad day for West Indies cricket.” Late on Sunday, the team issued a public apology for their  poor performance, and said manager Ricky Skerritt planned to investigate several players after the match in a party stand at Sabina Park.

“I am disgusted at the thoughtlessness and shamelessness displayed by these players following such a horrific performance,” Skerritt said in a statement, while captain Brian Lara pledged the team would double its efforts ahead of the series’ Second Test, starting on Friday in Trinidad.
“We all feel very embarrassed and defensive about what happened there,” said Jamaican fan Ransford Bowen, 52. “We are just hoping these guys will fight back. I could not believe my  eyes. I thought I was dreaming.” Other fans struggled to understand the West Indies’ quick tumble, going from eight overnight to 47 all out before lunch on Sunday. “I figured the boys were partying too much” the night before, said Courtney Baily, 60, manager of a Kingston pest control service. “These things happen to even the best cricketers. It’s just one of those things, but it makes the other side look very good.”

Maintenance worker Eustace Bissick, 34, suggested the players “need to team up more, and then they’ll get better.” Headlines in papers across the region, meanwhile, screamed “Sabina Shame,” “Sabina Slaughter” and “Sabina Stunner!” “The West Indies players would have made excellent limbo dancers. There’s just no limit to how low they can go,” wrote Garth Wattley in Trinidad’s Daily Express. The Jamaica Observer’s sports writer offered some consolation, praising England’s Steve Harmison for taking seven wickets in the disastrous innings. “A popular, knee-jerk assessment as the shock set in, was that the West Indies had spinelessly capitulated,” Garfield Myers wrote in yesterday’s Observer. “That view ignores the quality of 25-year-old Steve Harmison, the towering England paceman whose seven wickets for 12 from 12.3 overs — the best ever at Sabina Park — condemned the West Indies to their lowest score in Test match cricket.” (AP)