By Orin Davidson
These are times when West Indies cricket drives you absolutely nuts with despair.

It is such periods when you feel that the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) should be done away with regardless of the consequences.

When a team that has been lifelong minnows in world cricket like Zimbabwe, starts beating up on your team that was once kings of the world for longer than any other in the history of the game, you are justified if your rage forces you to behave in like manner to the inmates of the Berbice mental hospital.

And the most hurtful part is that West Indies cricket is much better than the humiliating results at Queen’s Park Oval and at Providence suggest, not to mention the just-concluded limited overs series trashing the regional team suffered in Australia.

Short of screaming out loud, the burning question is where is the leadership from the WICB that could have averted this current absurd state of affairs?

For this series against Zimbabwe, you have to ask yourself whether the Antigua-based WICB leaders took anytime away from their platefuls of breadfruit, to plan for the current encounter.

It seems the WICB needed more than the maximum 24 hours per day to produce an action plan to amend for the winless double tours of Australia.

Year after year, the ground staff around the region come up with the same type of listless pitches that offer nothing to the trademark strength of West Indies bowling, which is fast bowling.

This time around the ones at Queen’s Park Oval and Providence, presented two spinning paradises on a platter for the tourists who went on to make West Indies the mocking stock of the world.

That Zimbabwe, a team not even playing Test cricket, inflicted two harrowing defeats on the home team in West Indies’ own backyard, makes the ex-world champions the butt of all jokes from Bombay to Brisbane.

This is on the eve of a big tournament the WICB will host.

Zimbabwe packed its team with spinners and the West Indies selectors never noticed.

A few minor adjustments to the home team’s batting lineup were made but in general West Indies tactics remained the same.

They continue to rely on one solitary fast bowler and the defeats, which started at Brisbane, keep piling up.

In 50 overs against the rock bottom ranked team in world cricket, West Indies managed a mere five wickets at Providence.
If the selectors never noticed the opposition’s strength, the WICB cricket operations people seemed not to have awoken from their breadfruit- induced “nigaritis”.

Given the pedestrian nature of the pitches prepared so far, you get the impression West Indies boast such a deadly pace attack, that it will be able to dismiss the opposition cheaply on even the most placid of pitches.

But instead this team might soon  be losing every game in sight given the accelerated rate of its decline.

Miracles don’t happen in sport, especially cricket, which is why the WICB needs to understand it has to work for the team’s success, instead of expecting wins to drop from the sky like “Manna from above”.

Its officials ought to know that the best way to start is to make every iota of home advantage count.

Regardless of the amount of wickets Muttiah Muralitharan and Shane Warne have taken with their spin, fast bowling is the most devastating weapon to use against weak teams.

Which is why Zimbabwe, with its four-prong spin attack should have been confronted by green top pitches the moment they showed up at the QPO and Providence.

Then unleash newcomers Corey Edwards and Shannon Gabriel, who have shown they can be devastating with their pacy bowling this season, with the already established speed merchant Kemar Roach on the wet-eared Zimbabwe batsmen, and the boot would’ve been on the other foot at this stage of the tour.

There is even Tino Best to chose from, who has rebounded this year with the type of effective pace he should have been producing all these years.  By now you could have bet your last dollar Zimbabwe would have been put squarely in its place, instead of riding cock-a hoop in Georgetown with its unbeaten run.

If the active regional grounds men are incapable of maintaining grass on the various pitches, the WICB has no excuse in not finding at least one in the region who does know.

Or, in a case of desperation, an SOS could have been sent out for ICC pitch consultant Andy Atkinson to supervise the process from territory to territory.

They say catches win matches, but without proper bowlers no catches will be had.

West Indies is doing itself a disservice by frustrating Roach with pitches balder than the legendary Yul Brynner, and the pathetic sight of part-timer Dwayne Smith as his new ball partner, adds insult to injury.