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As if West Indies cricket does not already have enough problems, what with our failure to qualify for the last two white ball World Cups (20 and 50 overs), we now have the spectre of insularity rearing its ugly head once more.
It takes me back to the late 1960s when Garry Sobers’ aging cavaliers struggled to produce their best cricket consistently. That was the start of a very lean spell. It continued for at least five years.
Back then, the calls came from right here in Trinidad. In 1968, Sobers had committed the unpardonable sin of declaring the Trinidad Test and losing the series 0-1 to Colin Cowdrey’s England. In 1970 and 1971, Joey Carew’s side had won back-to-back Shell Shield titles.
Trinidadians thought Captain Carew should have been made skipper of the West Indies team and made no bones about it. That Carew did not command a regular place on the team mattered not.
There was a time when insularity was such a touchy issue in the region that the selectors opted for three different captains in a four-Test series. In the 1948 England tour of the West Indies, George Headley led the team in Barbados—it turned out to be his last Test—Gerry Gomez in Trinidad and John Goddard in Jamaica and Guyana.
Though it cannot be blamed for our decline, insularity usually raises its head in lean periods. And here is the thing, I don’t think the years since 1995 can still accurately be described as a lean period; it is more like the status quo.
Cricket is no longer what is important to us; it has taken a back seat.
New facilities abound and there is an ICC standard ground in each of the Caribbean territories. At the same time, the ICC has expanded the international game and in the process increased the number of teams, categories and competitions.
There are now far more opportunities to earn nice, juicy income for coaching, training and technical staff and, for CWI, the potential to generate revenue is much greater.
So, the insularity has taken a new turn—for the worse. It is now about eating a food!
(via CWI Media)
That is the context in which I place the Darren Bravo (non-)selection issue and the calls for a boycott of the two T20 internationals here in Trinidad later this month.
Bravo is a class act. But he has struggled in his last international outings for the West Indies. In his last 11 Test innings, he has one half-century. In his last 26 ODI innings, he has just over 500 runs, including only one century and one half-century.
This year—and last year—he came good at the domestic level. In the recently concluded Regional Super50, he looked as good as I have ever seen him. Honestly, I expected to see him in the ODI squad.
Bravo scored 139 runs off 113 balls.
Photo: Daniel Prentice/ Wired868
But it is a borderline case. It’s not hard to understand why a jury would return the verdict it did. And the nationality of the head juror is of no relevance!
I don’t buy the argument that, at 38 in 2027, Bravo will be too old so we should leave him out now because we are rebuilding the team with the next ODI World Cup in mind.
True, we want to build a team for 2027. But given our current ranking in all formats of the game, we don’t have the luxury of leaving out our best players—age notwithstanding—especially when they seem to be in their best form.
Photo: Nicholas Bhajan/ Wired868
By not involving our best players now, we may not qualify for 2027. The imperative, it seems to me, is to get ourselves comfortably into the top eight and assure ourselves that we are in! That means the next two years of ODI series will be crucial.
We therefore need to find the right mix of experienced/in-form players and up-and-coming talented/promising players.
So I hope that Bravo does not step away from the game and that the selectors have not turned their gaze irreversibly away from him. We need people like him to continue to play. Young bowlers need to know what it feels like to bowl to a top-class batsman.
Besides, let’s not forget that we are still playing Test cricket and we have some important series coming up.
All of that, it seems to me, makes any call to boycott the two T20Is in Tarouba just so much irresponsible foolishness. Even in a rumshop, you will get more enlightened discourse! How does a boycott help West Indies cricket? What is the point of it?
As things stand, people in Trinidad have not been attending international cricket, certainly not in the way they support TKR in the CPL. So what does a boycott prove?
Some critics have personalised the issue and pointed to lead selector Desmond Haynes’ decades-old personal battle with the Board over his omission. What has that got to do with anything? Since when do two wrongs make a right?
Instead of jumping down Haynes’ throat, I suggest, they should look at what is happening to cricket here in Trinidad and Tobago. What are we doing with the young upcoming talent here!
Cricket is practically dead on the East/West corridor. Why? Why have so many clubs folded in the last 10-15 years?
(via Arima We For)
One evening earlier this year—in March to be precise—I drove past the Queen’s Park Savannah. It being the height of the cricket season, in my mind’s eye I had already pictured scenes of scores of cricketers practising and training. I could almost hear the ‘tok’ of bat hitting ball and the shouts of ‘howzat, umpire?’
I got the shock of my life. Is a good ting mih heart good! Nothing! Nothing at all to do with cricket!
There may have been some crickets and some zandolie in de grass. But bat and ball? Nah! Stumps? Yes. More than a few. But tree stumps, remnants of rotten trees felled by the authorities for the safety of users of the Queen’s Park Savannah.
But all yuh want to kill Haynes! Steups! Gih me a chance!
No Harvard, no Crompton, no Paragon, no Moosai, no San Juan United but one club, yes, one club with two teams in the same division, Team I and Team II.
But all yuh want to kill Haynes! Steups! Gih me a chance!
Just for that I going Tarouba. Fuh spite!
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Tests 56 102 5 3538 218 36.47 7886 44.86 8 17 404 41 51 0
ODIs 122 117 14 3109 124 30.18 4434 70.11 4 18 252 75 35 0
T20Is 26 22 3 405 43* 21.31
I’m sorry.But this is definitely not the stats expected of a so called top noxh batsman.
At this stage, if he can’t make the current W.I. team, he should definitely consider retirement..
Bravo has always been overrated and never really delivered.
He is more of a fete match cricketer in my opinion. Haynes.’ explanation may have been crap. He should really have said that Bravo is simply not good enough.
He was simply letting him down gently.
Good Sir, Maybe you’re right about Dessie Haynes trying to “let him down gently” but I think you’re being hard on Darren. He is “not good enough”?
Look at the figures you provided: 102 Test inns, 8 centuries, 17 half-centuries and a 44.86 average; 122 ODIs, 4 centuries, 18 half-centuries.
That makes him “not good enough”?
Please have a look at the relevant stats for the batsmen currently on the Test and ODI teams and tell me what conclusion you arrive at.
One Test example: Jermaine Blackwood, Test VICE-CAPTAIN, has also played 102 inns and averages 30.18 with THREE centuries and 18 half-centuries.
One ODI example: Roston Chase has played 31 inns and averages 26 with NO centuries and THREE half-centuries.
No doubt some insulation has dominated WI cricket. It came almost nilly under Lloyd, but the Trinis show a penchant for it. Against India, Lara refused to apply follow on and gave away a test win because he wanted a Td spinner to play and was trying to make a case that the bowlers on the team couldn’t win w/o that spinner.
They never respected Greenidge because they wanted a lesser batsman Simonds to play. They wanted out DuJohn because they wanted Williams to play. Williams proved how poor he was when selected
Thank you Warren Thompson my free thinking QRC, The UWI brother. You have quoted the facts as they are, and laid bare the truth for the knowledge of the sheep, or worse the ostriches who refuse to believe what has taken place before their very eyes for reasons only they can comprehend.
The same applies to all sporting disciplines throughout the Caribbean, and constitutes the reason why the largest sport in the Caribbean region remains baseball.
Today after five decades of the demonstrated non-development, and inevitable decline of the respective sport disciplines, rather than direct investment to ensure world class success, the new mantra or acceptance of mediocrity is participation in sport to reduce and avert crime throughout our communities.
I join in prayer for divine intervention to keep HOPE ALIVE for the new era of fearless advocates for development of the Caribbean Sport Industry.
Special thanks again Warren my brother.
Selby Browne