SHARJAH, United Arab Emirates, CMC – Batting legend, Sir Vivian Richards, says all does not appear to be well in the West Indies dressing room and believes someone needs to show leadership in order to arrest the current rut.
The Caribbean side plunged to their fourth straight defeat of the tour yesterday, going down by 111 runs under the Duckworth/Lewis method to Pakistan in the opening One-Day International at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium.
West Indies were thrashed 3-0 in the preceding Twenty20 International series and Sir Viv said players needed to display more self-belief and pride in their performances.
“One of the things I believe need to be done is that you have to continue believing,” the legendary West Indies captain said, speaking as a television cricket analyst following yesterday’s defeat.
“Sometimes you lose on a regular basis but if you need to be here and want to continue to prolong your profession, there’s a lot of things you have to get done and that is about going out there with some pride.”
West Indies’ batting was again at fault, producing another lame display to come up short in pursuit of a revised target of 287 for victory, after Pakistan rallied to 284 for nine off the allotted 49 overs.
Marlon Samuels top-scored with 46 but the next best was 23 from tail-ender Sunil Narine and 20 from opener Johnson Charles.
Sir Viv, the most dominant batsman of his generation, said an urgent turnaround was now required and it was now important the current Windies batting line-up proved their quality.
“There’s enough good individuals in that team. You’ve only got to look at the way Sunil Narine and (Sulieman) Benn came and played a few shots,” the 64-year-old pointed out.
“I would get jealous for some reason if I was a frontline batter just seeing how easy they looked to this sort of bowling.
“The guys at the top of the order have got to pick their act up and if they need to continue being professionals, all this might do them well. They have to up the résumé a little bit. Now, the résumé is just on the way down.”
The second ODI is set for the same venue tomorrow.
