CLYDE BUTTS may have left New Zealand too early.
One of the chief selector’s objectives on his assignment during the early part of the West Indies tour was, in his words, “to observe how the players adapt to various situations in the middle.”
Had he not returned home after the two Tests, he would have had several useful case studies during the first 20/20 International in Auckland on Boxing Day.
There were several West Indians who did not adapt to the situation in the middle, their repeated panicky errors turning a match that should have been comfortably won into a tie.
They forced captain Chris Gayle to return to break the deadlock with three sixes and two fours in 25 off international cricket’s first “eliminator over.”
New Zealand could only raise 15 in their over from Sulieman Benn so the West Indies won after all.
But Gayle should not be been needed a second time after his 67 off 41 balls had set up the seemingly certain victory in the first place.
Had Butts been here, his notes would not have flattered those who were culpable. No doubt they would have corresponded with head coach John Dyson’s.
Certainly Gayle’s expression as the wickets tumbled was as dark and menacing as storm clouds over the Blue Mountains.
It was in the shortest form of the game that requires the utmost urgency but that was no justification. Because the action is so condensed, it calls for even more quick thinking that in the longer versions.
Gayle was at the opposite end when Xavier Marshall, supporting him impressively in a second wicket partnership of 63 off seven overs and with 74 needed off the last 10.5 overs, chose to cut the first ball he received from Daniel Vettori. The New Zealand captain is as wily a left-arm spinner as there is in the game and Marshall’s stumps were shattered by an arm ball before he was half-way through the shot.
When Gayle was caught in the deep from off-spinner Jeetan Patel five overs later attempting his sixth six, the target of 156 was still comfortably manageable.
Kieron Pollard replaced him for his first innings in New Zealand, following his arrival five days earlier. He despatched his first ball, from Patel, with disdain into the open stand at mid-wicket, as he can.
Confronting Vettori in the next over, a brand new experience, the massive Trinidadian was seduced by the flighted delivery and the short straight boundary at Eden Park. The outcome was a catch to long-on off his favoured slog. Gone for seven off four balls.
Carlton Baugh was next. He had to wait four balls before he got the strike, then took two through extra-cover off his first ball from Patel with a neat, clean drive.
He had, it appeared, taken heed of his frenzied dismissals in the ODIs against Pakistan in Abu Dhabi and the batsman with seven first-class hundreds to his credit would complete the job. Wrong.
Against the next ball, he took a wild swipe that sent the ball spiralling into the waiting gloves of wicket-keeper Brendon McCullum. In the end, it took Benn’s edge four and a push to point for one to draw level.
Marshall and Pollard are in their early 20s, players who are expected to be the future of West Indies cricket. Baugh has been recalled for the umpteenth time as Butts and his colleagues seek a reliable wicket-keeper/batsman.
They are exciting prospects but their basic errors hint at a lack of cricketing intelligence now so pervasive in the game in the West Indies.
The greats of the past did not get there on ability alone but on their appreciation of “how to adapt to various situations in the middle”.
Nor did they require special academies to teach them the rudiments of the game. Their elders did that.
Times have changed and academies are doing the job everywhere but in the West Indies. Boxing Day at Eden Park was further evidence that one is overdue.
