HOPE IN TEST VICTORY

ALTHOUGH the West Indies have lost the recently completed Test Series against Austrialia 3-1, and with it the coveted Sir Frank Worrell Trophy, yet winning the Fourth Test, after three disappointments, has provided both the team and its supporters throughout the Caribbean and beyond with a needed psychological boost.

Last week's Test victory was magnificent not just because of the victory but even more because of the discipline and grit of the players who made it possible. That Test should be a springboard of hope as we take on the Australians in the one day matches. If our team should maintain a positive and practical outlook, the Fourth Test victory can be translated into a springboard for a West Indies return to the top of world cricket. Yet we should not believe that a one in four victory result will catapult us once more to the top without the necessary planning, the determination, the mindset and the crowd support. What is critically needed is the appreciation that there are several factors, including professional training, resolve and a positive mental approach to the game. Others embrace the careful studying of other Test teams' weaknesses and strengths, and being prepared to learn, and in the process profit from them, and a worked out programme which would have the Region's finest cricketers playing together as a team, an appreciable time before the start of any scheduled Tests.

Training programmes should be worked out and conducted in one or more of the Caribbean countries, with provision for adequate accommodation and carefully planned meals. In addition the players chosen for these training camps should be provided with stipends designed to take care of normal family commitments in their home countries. This will take money and planning, and will need the financial support of Caricom Governments, with Trinidad and Tobago, principally because of its energy-based sector, providing the bulk of it, and without seeking to work out contributions of individual States based on a population formula. The region has to look at and appreciate the importance of holding a prominent place, not simply in Test cricket, but in the world of sport generally. And because of our history, victory in a Test series or in a succession of Test encounters with the various cricket playing nations, will do a lot both for our individual national as well as our regional well being. Those of us who were around in 1948, and old enough to follow the game, would remember the feeling of pride in having not only beaten the country in which Test cricket was born, but the country which had colonised us, and at the time still ruled the region. There was the feeling that we could both aim at the top and reach it, and that we could be achievers in areas unconnected to cricket. It helped to build our self-esteem as a Caribbean people. The 1970s and 1980s, which saw us as leaders of world cricket gave us a feeling of added self worth. But to reach the pinnacle once more will require a great deal of self-searching, sacrifice, commitment and crowd support. And we must have the faith that we can reach it again.