Wired868 Wired868 for smart sport news and opinion
After the eminently predictable England whitewash, even the optimists among us expected a miracle turnaround against South Africa. But that Kraigg Brathwaite’s no-hopers contrived to lose the Second Test in Guyana in just nine sessions is hard to take.
It is a failure of leadership and raises serious questions about the immediate future of West Indies cricket.
Photo: Daniel Prentice/ Gallo Images/ Wired868
Hope skyrocketed when the bowlers dismissed the Proteas for a paltry 160—including a 63-run last-wicket partnership!
The quickies delivered 40 of the first innings’ 54 overs, with Australia hero Shamar Joseph’s 5 for 33 including three batsmen bowled and one LBW. Jayden Seales cleaned up two batsmen and had a third LBW to finish with figures of 14-3-45-3.
Hope resurfaced in the Proteas’ second innings at the start of Day Three when five wickets fell for just 23 runs in 10.4 overs. The tireless Seales claimed 6/61, bowling two, having two caught behind and catching one himself.
Hope, however, had nosedived by the close of Day One, with WI tottering on 97 for 7.
Despite this shaky position, the eventual deficit was reduced to just 16. Joseph (25 off 27, 1×6, 4×4) again featured, joining Jason Holder (54* off 88, 1×6, 6×4) in a breezy 40-run last-wicket stand.
Hope of WI reaching their 263 target was kept alive long. Together, Joshua Da Silva (27 off 51, 1×4) and Gudakesh Motie (45 off 59b, 1×6, 5×4) took the total to 181.
But Nine, Ten and Jack managed to add only half of the 82 still needed. Exactly 40 runs short.
So disappointment rather than anger drove me when Bobby and I talked about the game fo’daymorning Monday.
Photo: Daniel Prentice/ Gallo Images/ Wired868
A week earlier, I decried the myopia of the selectors who had decided to omit 23-year-old Kirk McKenzie from the side. A top score of 12 and an aggregate of 33 in six innings isn’t exactly an encouraging scorecard. But no fair-minded selector could have failed to consider the context.
And to weigh the potential damage to the young man’s confidence caused by the lack of early opportunity to redeem himself.
Not an issue for Bobby. He was very pleased that rain and young Alick Athanaze had combined to prevent the tourists from taking a 1-0 lead in Port-of-Spain.
But he was genuinely angry that another West Indies home Test series was being played in the rainy season. That has long been a source of both great frustration and great annoyance for him.
Photo: Daniel Prentice/ Gallo Images/ Wired868
“We bending over backwards to please India and what we getting in return?” he had fumed. “And watch what going to happen with the Second Test. If we lose so much time in Trinidad, you think they will be able to play even a whole session without interruption in Guyana?
“[…] Doh talk about the havoc we going to have with the CPL! Starting in August and finishing in October? In the West Indies? Ha!”
But what really incensed him was what he called the “Intolerable, insufferable arrogance of Temba Bavuma”.
Photo: Daniel Prentice/ Gallo Images/ Wired868
The Proteas are not exactly Test cricket big sawatees. So, given the game situation at the end of Day Four in Port-of-Spain, how could they even think they still had a chance of victory on Day Five?
“Is the frigging disrespect I cyar take, bro!” he confided during our fo’daymorning walk last Monday. “The second innings in the match finish after tea on Day Four and Bavuma still feel dey could win? Dey could beat we?
“Who dey tink WI is, de School fuh de Blind?”
Late on Saturday, remember, replying to 257, Brathwaite’s side had collapsed from 173 for 4 to 233 all out. In the remaining Day Four time, the tourists added 30 to their lead—and declared before lunch on Day Five, setting WI a target of just under 300.
“Crapaud coulda smoke we pipe, eh,” Bobby conceded, “if the old Holder and not the new one did show up. And Athanaze, who I tell yuh will come good one of dese days, show why he is a fixture on the side now.
“But how Bavuma could tink dem could bowl out ah international side in two sessions? Is nutten but frigging disrespect!”
Photo: Daniel Prentice/ Gallo Images/ Wired868
“Well,” I demurred, “I not so sure. I tink it was a good declaration. I hear Brathwaite say West Indies coulda win if it wasn’t for the rain. But what yuh expect him to say? And he always wise after the fact.”
This week, however, there was no wisdom, only more platitudes.
“He said the batsmen had ‘played some rash shots’,” Bobby said, “and ‘did not do a good enough job’.”
Photo: Daniel Prentice/ Gallo Images/ Wired868
Me: “Frankly, Brathwaite is the one who’s not doing a good enough job. You remember anything that looked like a trap he set for any batsman? I don’t. You remember a bowling or fielding change he make in response to some technical weakness he spot in some batsman? I don’t.
“That’s hardly conclusive but, in the last two Tests, only three of the 33 South African wickets fell to outfield catches. So I don’t think he’s showing any particular cricketing acumen in the field.”
Bobby: “And he’s not really leading from the front with the bat. I think he made one half-century in the three Tests in England, 35 and 0 in the Oval, 3 and 25 in Providence. Not exactly stellar.”
Me: I check the World Test Championship table yesterday. We have 20 points from nine games, dead-last of the nine teams now. We playing two Tests against Bangladesh in November. They only have 12 points…
Bobby: So if we beat dem…
Me: …from four matches. But is your percentage that matters, not so much your points. And they have a nearly seven-point percentage advantage.
Photo: Daniel Prentice/ Gallo Images/ Wired868
Bobby: “Ent is Bangladesh Brathwaite beat in 2021 in his first series as captain?”
Me: “Yup. When [Kyle] Mayers and [Nkrumah] Bonner won the Test for us? Well, the coach told Ian Bishop after the match that he’s been talking to some of the players who’re not available now. Too much money in white ball.”
Bobby: “You thinking what I thinking?”
Me: “About Hope—with a capital H?”
(Copyright AFP/ Marty Melville)
Bobby: “Exactly! If WI don’t beat Bangladesh, it’s bye-bye, Brathwaite.”
When Ramon Simmons bowled Shai Hope for 56, the Guyana Amazon Warriors had not yet overhauled the modest target set Read more
When Nicholas Pooran does not get off, Trinbago Knight Riders do not get over the line. Sometimes. In Match 28 Read more
Barbados Royals fielder Alick Athanaze ran in from long-off and realised that Saint Kitts and Nevis Patriots batsman Ryan John’s Read more
It rained at the Kensington Oval in Barbados on Wednesday, not sixes but H2O. It meant that, in Match 13 Read more
“…a divided world that don’t need islands no more…” Can it be that Sir Clive Lloyd does not know fellow Read more
Cricket West Indies revealed today that it has only one nomination to replace outgoing vice-president Azim Bassarath—and it is none Read more
Columns that say that, after Covid has done its worst, we’re grateful
to be still here and be able to get out of bed early to heed the poet’s
Carpe diem injunction and, savouring all the day’s blessings, mine
those banal, random, ordinary, routine, unspectacular, run-of-the-mill,
early-morning thoughts and conversations we often engage in.
