The headline on the WICB website revealed one of the many problems impeding West Indies cricket at present.
“Windies heads held high after Delhi defeat,” it read over the story of India’s victory by five wickets last week in the first in the series of three Tests.
As the board’s official chronicle, its take was expectedly upbeat. As a straightforward assessment of the performance of the No.7 team against No.3 (recently No.1) on foreign soil, it carried some merit, but given the circumstances of the match, and the trouncing of Bangladesh 10 days earlier, it was an unsatisfactory result.
To state that the West Indies could hold their heads high at the end of it exposed the low expectations that are the effect of failure to convert strong positions into success over a decade and more and through the rapid decline from top to near bottom of the standings.
A more objective report on the match was prominent Indian journalist Harsha Bhogle’s on the cricinfo website.
Under the banner, ‘West Indies flub their best chance,‘ he wrote: “They seem to be trapped in a mindset that dooms them to failure.”
Only when they overcome that condition can the West Indies expect to rise up the list.
Following yet another of the everlasting Shivnarine Chanderpaul’s critical hundreds (what would we do without him?) and his partnership of 108 with his teenage replica, Kraigg Brathwaite, the West Indies built a first innings total of 304.
Even that was fewer than it should have been as the last five wickets could yield only 34. They then shocked India’s batting, arguably the strongest, and certainly most experienced, in the contemporary game by dismissing it for 209 to secure a first innings lead of 95.
Cynics spoke of “freak” dismissals but there was nothing freakish about Carlton Baugh’s breathtaking wicket-keeping or the deliveries from Fidel Edwards that stuck up Sachin Tendulkar lbw or Darren Sammy that found a gap between M S Dhoni’s bat and pad to hit off-stump. Of all the others, only the deflection onto the stumps that ran out non-striker Gautum Gambir fit the ‘freak‘ category.
If not commanding, the West Indies’ advantage was enough to work with, to build a total that would challenge even India’s powerhouses in the last innings.
The situation had been similar in the second Test in Bangladesh when, through positive batting by Kirk Edwards and Dwayne Bravo, they converted a lead of 124 into a match-winning second innings declaration at 383 for five.
As with India’s, Bangladesh’s bowling was heavily based on spin.
After 10 years of struggle in the Test arena, they are in the same boat as the West Indies, completely lacking
conviction. It was obvious as Edwards and Bravo took command. Nor could Bangladesh prevent a feeble collapse of their last six second innings wickets for 22 after building a promising position of 256 for four in pursuit of an unlikely 508.
It was the same state that overcame the West Indies in Delhi.
This was India, not Bangladesh, a seemingly simple change of names that predicated their contrasting caution. Left 14 overs to bat out the third day, and even with their handy lead, Dhoni could clearly sense the nerves in the opposition dressing room with two openers, Brathwaite and Kieran Powell, new to Test cricket and faced with such a challenge. The Indian captain had seen the effect of spin on the West Indies in Bangladesh so he used it from each end with the new ball. Neither Brathwaite nor Powell saw out the day and the use of Fidel Edwards as nightwatchman meant an early wicket next morning.
It became 86 for seven as a crushing defeat loomed before the first positive batting, by Chanderpaul, Sammy and Ravi Rampaul, contributed necessary runs to leave India 276 to win. On an improving pitch and against such batting, it was not nearly enough. At least 400 was required.
Yet again, as often in Bangladesh, there were key lbws from uncertain forward prods, this time Bravo and even Chanderpaul. A dozen years earlier they might have got away with such an approach, as the left-handed Jimmy Adams did to such productive effect in India in 1995 that they called him “Padams.”
“With three and four men around the bat and the ball popping occasionally, I decided to go with either bat or pad, but not both, and it worked,” Adams explained then. It wouldn’t work now as umpires, emboldened by technology, are swift to raise the finger.
Ultra-caution was the downfall in Delhi. Ultra-carelessness was the letdown at Lord’s 11 years earlier when the West Indies blew a lead of 143 with their all-out second innings crumble to 54 that opened the way to the first England victory in a 3-1 series triumph.
The West Indies haven’t got the balance right in the interim. It calls for a change in mindset and that is easier said than done.
*********************
Whenever its demise has been gloomily predicted, Test cricket somehow comes up with something special to establish why, after 124 years and even with the popularity of the recent limited-overs varieties, it remains the premier form of the game.
There has been the tied Test, several riveting series and a host of outstanding individual performance to keep the doubters at bay. Few have been more stirring than the match between Australia and South Africa, played under the spectacular backdrop of Cape Town’s Table Mountain, last week.
None of the more than 2,000 Tests has ever witnessed the same sharp, incredible twists and turns. On the second day, on a lively but scarcely unplayable pitch, the 20 wickets of two innings vanished for 143 runs off 42.3 overs. Take your eyes of the tv set to answer the phone or crack open a Banks and two more were probably gone.
Australia, it surely seemed, couldn’t lose after routing South Africa for 96 to lead by 188. But this was Test cricket and, in the twinkling of an eye, they found themselves 21 for nine before “recovering” to 47 all out.
It was more like a primary school match than a Test until Graeme Smith and Hashim Amla put it back on the rails with hundreds that belied the earlier troubles and carried South Africa to victory by eight wickets.
Such contortions would not have been possible in the limitations of the one-day, one-innings game. As is consistently proven, these have given the game a new dimension but neither can rival Tests for prolonged drama and never will.
