Dwayne Bravo’s upgrade to the vice-captaincy for the forthcoming West Indies tour of Zimbabwe and South Africa places a new responsibility on a dynamic, richly talented all-round cricketer whose game has begun to drift into the worrying underachievement that has overcome so many others in the team.
West Indies cricket needs many things to raise it from its present moribund state. Not the least is inspiring leadership, on the field as much as off it.
The new skipper, Chris Gayle, has already shown in his brief tenure how the obligation of captaincy can suddenly transform those previously considered unsuited to the role. Bravo’s infectious enthusiasm only needs to be properly channelled to have the same effect.
They make an interesting combination, Gayle’s ice to Bravo’s fire, the former with limited experience in the job, the latter with none at all. Yet the selectors’ daring decision might well prove a masterstroke.
Bravo’s unrestrained delight in everything he does – as dashing batsman, golden-arm bowler, jack-in-the-box fielder – provides the spark needed by any team, more especially one as insecure as the West Indies.
Yet it has been counterbalanced by the lack of focus now characteristic of the team itself.
In the four years since he made an impressive entrance into Test cricket in the series in England, aged 20 (with a batting average of 27.5 and 16 wickets at 26.18), his cricket has not advanced.
There have been several glimpses of his potential but they have been spasmodic.
None was more stirring than his second innings 113 against Australia (Glenn McGrath, Brett Lee, Shane Warne and all) at Hobart two years ago or his innings return of six for 84 in the next Test in Adelaide.
These were the deeds of a player who should have more than a couple of hundreds (the other was 107 at the ARG against South Africa in 2006, one of eight in the match) and more than two five-wicket returns in his 23 Tests.
Careless cricket and, according to the former team physiotherapist Stephen Part-ridge, careless attention to fitness have held him back.
Time and again – four times in seven Test innings in England last summer – he has slogged away his hand when the team needed the hundred that seemed inevitable, a sure sign of concentration lapses. Of his 45 Test wickets, 28 were in his first 12 Tests, 17 in his next 11.
During the 2005 VB Series of ODIs in Australia, then captain Brian Lara, his mentor and fellow native of Santa Cruz, publicly admonished him for his lack of runs, reminding him that he was a batsman first, a bowler second.
It was an obvious indication that Lara was not satisfied with his lack of progress.
But the most damning indictment of Bravo’s attitude came from Partridge’s report to the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) following the 2006 home series against India.
One of the Australians on coach Bennett King’s staff, Partridge stated that the all-rounder’s “approach to bowling training is minimalist”, noted that he had “largely moved away from adhering to his personalized physical programme” and charged that “his diet is of major concern, consisting of sugar and little else”.
He added that any gains in physical conditioning would be “gradual and directly linked to the support we gain from his fellow countryman and patron”, an obvious reference to Lara, then the captain.
Lara has now retired, carrying his batting brilliance to India and the new Twenty20 Indian Cricket League.
It is now up to the younger men who remain to stimulate a revival for the West Indies, however gradual.
At 24, Bravo possesses all the cricketing attributes to be one of the leaders. The selectors have assigned him a significant new role they expect to be the making of a captain of the future.
