By Tony cozier
Stuart Williams, stand-in West Indies head coach over the five months since Ottis Gibson was dismissed last August, hopes that the return of Darren Bravo and Kemar Roach brings “a different feel to the whole team, maybe the spark that we need in the World Cup”.
There can be no doubt that West Indies need “a different feel” and a “spark”. Their flame was dimmed to barely a flicker by repercussions from the team’s sudden, contentious exit from the tour of India in October that led to the equally contentious omission of Dwayne Bravo and Keiron Pollard from the World Cup 15 and by the trouncing in the subsequent ODI series in South Africa.
Sunil Narine, the white-ball spin whiz, would have completed an ideal trio to fit Williams’ expectations – key batsman, incisive fast bowler and mesmerising spinner.
Instead, he withdrew after originally selected, still cautious following four months tweaking an action reported as suspect by three international umpires in the Champions League in India last September. It was another setback to shake the team’s already fragile self-confidence.
In the circumstances, any glimmer of encouragement was understandably welcomed.
Williams’ optimism that Roach and ‘Lil’ Bravo, as Dwayne’s younger brother refers to himself, can make a difference is based on Roach’s record as the sharp spearhead of the bowling and left-handed Bravo’s obvious, if still unfulfilled, quality batting at No.3, a position that presented one of the many problems in South Africa.
Returning to international cricket in its most prestigious event is likely to be a telling motivating factor for both.
There are differing views on the effect the absence of international cricket leading into such an extended, multi-team tournament would have on the two.
Either Bravo and Roach are fresh and, as they insist, “raring to go”, not weighed down by the distress of the thrashing in South Africa, or they are under pressure to immediately respond to tough competition in the game’s longest, most prestigious event. Take your pick.
The two warm-ups at the Sydney Cricket Ground, against England tomorrow and Scotland, one of the four associates, on Thursday, are the only opportunities for them to get going in the middle before their official Group B opener against Ireland, the strongest and most dangerous of the associates, in Nelson, New Zealand, on February 16.
Bravo’s last match for West Indies was the fourth ODI in India before he and his teammates packed bags and headed for home. He then pulled out of the subsequent South Africa tour for “personal reasons”, as he did in New Zealand earlier in the year.
The “personal reasons” that disrupted his cricket are seemingly behind him. While West Indies were taking a hiding in South Africa, he was back in the regional 50-overs tournament in January for the eventual champions, Trinidad and Tobago Red Force. It would have done more harm than good.
Pitches at the main venue, the Queen’s Park Oval, were condemned by captains and coaches and by the president of the Trinidad and Tobago board. The ball deviated at sharp angles for even ordinary spinners. There were 17 totals under 150 in 13 matches. Narine returned his staggering 8-3-9-6 figures against the Guyana Jaguars in the final after Jason Mohammed scored the only individual hundred in the nine matches at Queen’s Park.
Like everyone else, Bravo found his natural flamboyance stifled by conditions; he cobbled together 109 runs in five innings.
The pitches in Australia and New Zealand, both natural and drop-in, won’t present Queen’s Park’s constraints. There were nine hundreds in the 11 lead-up ODIs in Australia involving South Africa, India and England, eight in the 16 played by South Africa, Pakistan and Sri Lanka in New Zealand.
Grant Elliott and Luke Ronchi, neither of whom features in the New Zealand Test team, became instantly recognizable names when they set a new ODI sixth wicket record of 267 unbeaten against Sri Lanka.
Brett Lee foresees the World Cup suffering if such flat pitches are produced. “That is last thing we want,” he said. Bravo and the other batsmen wouldn’t agree; Roach and the bowlers would.
For Bravo, who turned 26 on Friday, it is the chance, on the game’s most prominent stage, to reassert himself. He promised so much in his initial foray into the highest level that Steve Waugh described him as “world cricket’s next superstar, no doubt”.
That was three years ago since then other young superstars in their early or mid-20s – Virat Kohli, 26, Joe Root, 24, Steve Smith, 25, Kane Williamson, 24 – have superseded him.
None is more naturally gifted than ‘Lil’ Bravo whose left-handed flair carries the unmistakable stamp of his legendary blood cousin, Brian Lara; now ranked 46 in ODIs, 32 in Tests, he has a lot of ground to make up. The World Cup is the ideal stage to start.
Roach’s absence was even longer than Bravo’s. Except for 16.5 overs on the first day of the first Test in South Africa in December when struck down with his second injury in less than a year, his last match for West Indies was the second Test against Bangladesh in St. Lucia last September.
A fractured bone in his shoulder that required surgery ended his tour of India in October even before the eventual abandonment; a right ankle twisted on delivery eliminated him for the remaining Tests and the limited-overs matches in South Africa.
Fit again, he brings with him pacy, controlled seam movement that has earned him 98 wickets in 64 ODIs at the serviceable runs-per-over rate of 4.90.
Even the most upbeat coach could hardly expect two players alone, no matter how special, to suddenly transform his team from no-hopers to World Cup contenders.
Bravo and Roach can only make a significant difference in collaboration with other key players. It involves a proliferation of ‘ifs’.
West Indies’ unlikely prospects going as far as the semi-final for the first time since 1996 depend on if, at one and the same time, Chris Gayle finds the fitness and the form for one last, memorable World Cup hurrah, Marlon Samuels sets his sights beyond pretty 70s and 80s, Andre Russell controls his lively bowling and fierce hitting, Jerome Taylor starts taking wickets as he used to, Bravo and Roach match Stuart Williams hopes and the team as a whole sheds its traditional inconsistency.
Somehow, that seems just too many ‘ifs’ to look any further forward than the opening challenge from Ireland.
