We may not have expected the West Indies to lift the 2011 Cricket World Cup but the manner of their loss to Pakistan will long linger as a painful embarrassment
Having tiptoed shamefacedly into the quarter finals of the 2011 Cricket World Cup the West Indies team wasted no time in conceding that they really did not belong in the auspicious company of the other seven combatants who had earned their places through consistently solid performances or else, like England, had clawed their way back from adversity to arrive in the hall of qualifiers safe if more than a trifle breathless.
By contrast, the performances of the Caribbean side had amounted to no more than what we had feared, their arguably undeserved place in the final eight being due only to the permutations of the grouping system which offered the presumably stronger teams two decidedly weaker opponents and an opportunity to have the subsequent rounds played out on a more level playing field. That, plus their demolition of Bangladesh, a feat which few would back them to repeat if they were required to do it again, was enough to get them across the first hurdle, albeit on run rate.
All that having been said we were entitled to believe, at least hope, that the West Indies would count their blessings, go back to the drawing board and recognize that they would have had to raise their game and significantly so if they were to stand of advancing any further. Cricket, the old saying goes, is a game of glorious uncertainties and from all that we have seen of the shorter versions of the game, the old adage assumes a decidedly greater measure of relevance. As it happened, their performance against Pakistan was arguably their most disgraceful showing not only in the tournament but anywhere at anytime in limited overs.
If Pakistan’s current run of form would have made them favourites in the first quarter final encounter, it has to be said that the propensity of the Pakistanis to implode suddenly and spectacularly in the middle of the most amazing run of success would have at least given the West Indies something to work with. Never mind the fact that they entered the game with two defeats behind them during which they had demonstrated no real will to compete, far less win. Against England, particularly, they displayed a familiar propensity to walk past an open door or to slam it shut and remain outside.
One hundred and twelve runs on less than 44 overs would almost certainly have surprised if not shocked the Pakistanis. What is certain is that the West Indies’ offering placed the Pakistanis in a position where their batters could do pretty much as they pleased; so that we never really gave ourselves a chance to test the nerve of our opponents.
If the overall performance of the team on the sub-continent provided no indication that our cricket is going anywhere when compared with that of the other major cricketing nations, the effort against Pakistan surely deserves an enquiry. When the kind of wimpish effort displayed against Pakistan can emerge from what, presumably, was a carefully thought out plan to do their best to win the game, questions must surely be asked not only about the quality of our cricket but about the quality of our planning. The most that can be said about the game is that it seriously short-changed the spectators many of whom have spent the entire season hunting tickets for the big games.
Otis Gibson has a point. Serious questions must now most assuredly arise about the role of our senior players whose job it surely was to ‘dig in,’ to lead by example, and when the chips were down, to demonstrate why they are the leaders of the pack. Only Chanderpaul, characteristically, demonstrated some measure of fight. The others simply never appeared to try. They simply capitulated.
One of the harsher responses to the West Indies’ obliteration by Pakistan has come, perhaps not surprisingly, from a West Indian, not just any West Indian but one whom, as the saying goes, has been there and done it. Writing in The Times of India a week ago, cricketing legend Viv Richards declared: “There is an abundance of talent but, sadly, also a paucity of thought and mental strength.” Coming from a great West Indian player who was voted one of the five cricketers on the century in 2000 the remark is both poignant and painful though, when one reflects on the abysmal offering against Pakistan one is hard-pressed to contradict the great man. Viv Richards grew up and played his cricket at a time when pride and passion were the very essence of the West Indian game. Quite what its essence is these days is hard to tell. What is certain is that the evolution of the game appears to have distanced players in some teams, including the West Indies, from their moorings. Caribbean cricket appears to have become private enterprise, par excellence. The distractions of new forms of the game have brought with it compelling distractions which, in the case of the West Indies may well have eroded the concepts of team and nation. Arguably, these days we play much more for purse than for pride.
These days, there is a certain tiresomeness in talking about West Indies cricket, particularly when there isn’t much to talk about apart from its continual decline and the twisting of a regional cricketing that sometimes appears more preoccupied with its own self-importance than with the advancement of the game. If the Board cannot take all of the blame for the dismal on-field performances, that portion of the blame which it must shoulder is now much more than enough for it to undertake an emergency reinvention of itself. What it takes to revive the fortunes of our cricket has long been absent in the Board and that is a reality which, for some unknown reason, we appear unwilling to face.
Those of us who love our cricket soldier on, blind in our loyalty; out of hope rather than confidence that the worm will turn. Or perhaps it may well have to do with the fact that try as we might we simply cannot bring ourselves to accept that a pursuit that once made Caribbean people immensely proud is now in a condition of continual decline and worse, however much we pretend to the contrary, none of us really know what is wrong and just how to fix it.
