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If David Rudder had had his way, there would be no scary future awaiting West Indies Test cricket.
“Pretty soon the runs are gonna flow again like water,” he declared, “bringing so much joy to each and every son and daughter.”
Easy as it is to get the wrong impression, King David was partially right. Despite the absence of meaningful response from the authorities, the Rally appeal first came full four decades ago!
(via Belfast Telegraph.)
Brian Lara’s eye-opening 277. His record-breaking 375. His epic 213. His heart-stopping 153*. Carl Hooper’s satisfying 233. The Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Ramnaresh Sarwan-led belief-enhancing 418 for 7. BCL’s record-recapturing 400*. Chris Gayle’s uplifting 317. His jaw-dropping 333.
When Rudder ventured his prediction, all of those runs were still in the future.
As was, remember?, the inspiring 23 April 1991 victory. South Africa 122 for 2 overnight, chasing 201 for the historic win? No special West Indian runs but Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh scything through the Proteas batting like a slave’s machete through a stalk of sugar cane?
(Copyright Ross Setford/ EMPICS via Getty Images.)
That unlikely, unforgettable 52-run triumph gave Richie Richardson’s team the victory in that one-off match. But no more nostalgia for the moment. Let us not remind ourselves that it was four years before 1991 when Rudder was already warning that “the [ten long years of] rule seems coming to an end.”
In the 34 years since 1991, WI have faced South Africa in ten series. We have won two Tests, they have won 23—and all ten series!
Even in cricket, alas! with all its glorious uncertainties, actions have consequences. Likewise inaction. Which is why so devastating a development now awaits the region’s Test cricketers.
Here is the disquieting Sunday 20 July Guardian headline on a Matt Hughes piece: “Two-division Test cricket on agenda with ICC to consider WTC expansion.”
Photo: Associated Press.
Confirmation of the crisis is not long in coming—WI are getting a six for a nine! And relatively soon.
Any changes would be introduced for the next cycle of the World Test Championship, due to run from 2027 to 2029, and involve an expansion from the current nine-team format to two divisions of six.
Six?!? Statistically, the chances of Daren Sammy’s side sneaking into the top six are non-existent. In any language. Nil, zero, zilch, nada, rien, null!
Photo: CWI Media.
Wherever you look in the Test arena in the 21st century, WI have not fared too much better than they have against South Africa. But in the good old days, well before the ICC Big Three became the ICC Big Three, it was not like that.
Some of the history bears repeating.
At Lord’s in 1950, for instance, a WI team beat England in England for the very first time. Seven years and one LBW rule change later, John Goddard’s talented squad couldn’t hold a candle to the home side, losing three of the five Tests.
Back, from left: Andy Ganteaume, Rohan Kanhai, Nyron Asgarali, Gerry Alexander, Denis Atkinson, Tom Dewdney, Wes Hall, Garry Sobers, Bruce Pairaudeau, Roy Gilchrist, Collie Smith. Front, from left: Sonny Ramadhin, Frank Worrell, John Goddard (captain), Clyde Walcott, Everton Weekes, and Alf Valentine.
Photo: Getty Images.
“They need a black man to lead them,” Learie Constantine told CLR James. Done.
Frank Worrell took the helm. Whipping England convincingly in 1963 and again in 1966, the Caribbean Cavaliers would eventually come to completely dominate world cricket, never losing a single series between 1978 and 1995.
True, England did win the Wisden Trophy in the Caribbean in 1967/68, retaining it at home in 1969. But their next series victory came in 2000. In between, WI registered no fewer than 10 liens on the trophy, conceding only three draws.
Photo: Eric Piper/ Daily Mirror.
But when in the 1990s, to paraphrase Rudder, some of the old generals retired and went, the runs didn’t come as they did before.
The 21st century tally currently stands at 9-3. In England’s favour.
Against Australia in 1998/99, although some runs did come, Lara’s side was only able to manage a draw. That made the overall tally between 1960, when Worrell took over the captaincy, and 1999: two draws, Australia six wins, West Indies eight.
The West Indies had just completed a comprehensive 408-run win over their hosts to seal a 2-0 series triumph–their first-ever Test series victory in Australia.
(via Caribbean Beat.)
When last month the team currently flying the maroon flag—at half-mast?—contrived to be whitewashed in a three-match home series, Australia’s tally reached 16. West Indies’? Still stuck on eight!
At the turn of the century, the West Indies vs India series score read 11 to two with two drawn. In 2002, in the Lara interregnum, Hooper’s home side got the better of Saurav Ganguly’s tourists 2-1.
No West Indies side has beaten India in the 25 Tests since, let alone a series!
(AP Photo/ Ricardo Mazalan.)
Statistically, it bears repeating, as far as top six qualification goes, WI don’t have a prayer. It is clear that WI have not had a prayer for years.
And yet, there are certainly those West Indian supporters who will find Hughes’ bold, matter-of-fact statement of their team’s fate hard to swallow.
Under the current ICC Test rankings, the world Test champions, South Africa, plus New Zealand and Sri Lanka would join the big three in division one, with Ireland, Afghanistan, and Zimbabwe in line to be admitted to the World Test Championship for the first time to join Pakistan, West Indies and Bangladesh in division two.
Mitchell Starc took six wickets for nine runs.
Photo: AFP/ Getty Images.
We’ve already shown where we stand as far as South Africa are concerned. Let us fill the gaps.
Of the nine series contested against Sri Lanka since the turn of the century, the Sri Lankans have won four and four have ended in draws.
New Zealand? In 1979/80, the umpiring was bad enough to lead Michael Holding to kick the stumps out of the ground and Colin Croft to accidentally knock over the presiding umpire.
Photo: Getty Images.
The Kiwis won that three-match series 1-0, their only series win in the nine played before the start of the current century.
Of the nine completed since then, WI have won just one.
How have the mighty fallen!
Lara would break the record again, 10 years later.
(Copyright ICC.)
And the often prescient King David has so far been off the mark. “We’ve lost the battle,” he reassured us decades ago, “but yet we will win the war.”
Our Toussaints have indisputably gone; where, oh where is our Dessalines?
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Earl Best taught cricket, French, football and Spanish at QRC for many years and has written consistently for the Tapia and the Trinidad and Tobago Review since the 1970’s.
He is also a former sports editor at the Trinidad Guardian and the Trinidad Express and is now a senior lecturer in Journalism at COSTAATT.
