-Second to last ICC ranked team the West Indies take on number three ranked Sri Lanka from tomorrow very much underprepared and with a new look team and a new captain to boot
As the skies opened up in Colombo over the past few days, flooding streets and the outfield at the Sinhalese Sports Club ground, the West Indies cricketers would have come to fully appreciate the age-old adage that it never rains but it pours.
The portents for their series in Sri Lanka that starts tomorrow in the southern town of Galle with the first of three Tests were daunting enough without having them amplified by the washout that turned their one and only preparation match from three days to a meaningless one from which only Brendan Nash gained any value.
It means that the team ranked one above the bottom of the Test standings by the International Cricket Council (ICC) must confront opponents placed at No.3 and rising manifestly undercooked. The only form of the game anyone in the 15 played since the South African series at home in July was the regional 50-overs tournament.
Like the weather, history, and much else besides, is also against them.
Their two previous tours of Sri Lanka have brought crushing defeats. They were thrashed in all three Tests in 2003, in spite of Brian Lara’s phenomenal 688 runs at an average of 114.66, and in both in 2005, although there was the extenuating circumstance that they had to make do with a hastily assembled second-string side following a strike by disgruntled leading players.
This time they have come without their two fastest and most penetrative bowlers, Fidel Edwards and Jerome Taylor, both injured.
They are also without Ramnaresh Sarwan, an experienced and accomplished batsman with an average of 57.61 in seven Tests against Sri Lanka.
His recurring breakdowns over the past year have prompted selectors to query his commitment to fitness and not only decline to renew his contract but leave him out entirely .
Those who are left find themselves under a new leader, Darren Sammy, who has been chosen to replace the incumbent for the previous three years, Chris Gayle.
A bits-and-pieces all-rounder who has been restricted to eight Tests since his debut three years ago, Sammy has come to the post virtually by default. But he is an impressive character who could well provide the strong leadership now needed.
It is a development as critical to the team’s fortunes over the next six weeks (five ODIs and a Twenty20 International follow the Tests) even as the absence of Sarwan and the fast bowlers.
The change of captains – and that of Nash for Darren Bravo as vice-captain – was predicated by the decisions of Gayle and Bravo to refuse the offer of a retainer contract, presumably to free themselves for Twenty20 tournaments even more lucrative than the substantial sums their West Indies deals would have earned them.
Both have publicly pledged their support for Sammy – as well as their commitment to West Indies cricket – but, knowing their every movement will be closely monitored by wary fans back home, they will be under pressure to prove themselves true to their word.
If his tactics and laid-back approach placed his captaincy under increasing doubt, Gayle’s batting thrived in his 20 Tests at the helm, averaging 47.75 with five of his 12 hundreds, against 38.28 during his time in the ranks. He has been the one fixed opener for almost a decade.
His contributions, on and off the field, are necessary for a team with such limitations to at least give the strong, confident Sri Lankans a fight.
To a somewhat lesser extent, the same holds true for Bravo whose talent and enthusiasm have not been fully matched by performance in his six years at the highest level.
For all the obvious limitations, there are a few aspects that give the West Indies some encouragement.
For one, they won’t been menaced, as they were on their two previous tours, by the left-arm swing of Chaminda Vaas and the mesmerising spin of Muttiah Muralitheran, both now retired from Test cricket.
In the three Tests in 2002, they gathered 50 wickets between them, three years on it was 30 in two. In other words, 80 of the 100 available. Their simulatenous exits equate to those of Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne from Australia two years back.
Nor are there any lofty expectations that the West Indies can suddenly pull off one of the game’s most unlikely upsets. All the long suffering public back home – and, indeed, the global cricket fraternity – wants is for them to be the best they can be, consistently. Anytime they find themselves in a hole, as is inevitable, they only need to look for inspiration to the example of New Zealand in neighbouring India.
The Kiwis are just above the West Iidies in the lower reaches of the ICC Test rankings. They arrived in India, No.1 on the present hit parade, fresh from a
humiliating 4-0 beating in an ODI series n Bangladesh, even lower on the charts than themselves and the West Indies. When India duly amassed 487 in their first innings in the first Test and New Zealand were faltering at 137 for four in reply, the match was following the predicted script.
From that point, it followed an entirely different path. Kane Williamson, a 20-year-old on debut, and Jesse Ryder, the mercurial left-hander, compiled
hundreds to draw them within 28 of the lead, India collapsed to 15 for five late on the fourth day and it took a maiden hundred from Harbhajan Singh to hold them off. Adrian Barath and Darren Bravo are two promising new West Indians in their early 20s with the chance of emulating Williamson. Others, such as Andre Russell, Nelon Pascal and Shane Shillingford, have a real chance to make their name in the coming weeks.
In the current second Test in India, there was more evidence from the Kiwis of what can done by determination and will power. Tim McIntosh, the left-handed opener, fell for a ‘pair’ in the first Test; he came back with a hundred.
To apply Barack Obama’s line to what seems a mission impossible for the West Indies, “Yes, We Can”. The trick is for everyone to believe it.