The Windies pass second test

Errol Miller

A FEW weeks ago I asked the question that is on every cricket lover's mind in the Caribbean, Has the West Indies Team hit rock-bottom? Is the West Indies Team on the way up or do we have further to fall? I decided to set up three hurdles that the team would have to overcome before I would pass judgement on where the team was in terms of rebuilding. The first hurdle was how would they deal with their first defeat after a string of victories in the one-day game? The second is how would they perform in the Test series against Pakistan? The third is how will they perform on tour in England?

The West Indies Team passed the first test in that after their first defeat they came back fighting and won the next game. Now that the Test series against Pakistan has concluded there can be no doubt that they passed the second test.

They won a series in which every game was evenly contested. Those people who maintained that the present team was the worst in West Indies cricket history have been proven wrong. Pakistan is the best bowling team in the world, and as most students of the game know it is bowlers that win matches most of the times. The team is far from being the most talented West Indies Team ever, but they have shown that playing as a team they are able to overcome some of the limitations of talent. While many worship at the feet of individual talent, it is co-operative and collective effort, teamwork, which is at the root of success in any team sport and most of life.

The third test is still to come and will be answered over the next three months. The point is that over the last three years we have been playing reasonably well in the Caribbean but extremely poorly on tours. We lost three-nil to Pakistan in Pakistan and returned to the Caribbean to draw the five-Test series with the reigning world champion Australians. We went to South Africa and New Zealand and again lost miserably only to return to the Caribbean to do well against Zimbabwe and Pakistan.

Now we go to England. If we perform well there we would have broken the cycle and would be well on the way to recovery as a competitive Test team and should go to Australia with some confidence.

Nerve-wracking

Speaking of the very exciting and nerve-wracking Third Test in Antigua there were several points at which I just could not listen out of sheer anxiety and the need to recuperate nervous energy and recover emotional stability.

The first was on the morning of the Third Day when we lost seven wickets for 59 runs and the other time was on the last day when we kept losing wickets at all too regular intervals.

When we won I was driving off the campus and blew my horn in a manner that was certainly not befitting of a modest decorum.

It is understatement to say that the match was exciting. My disappointment was that the standard of umpiring left much to be desired. There were at least two of the three LBWs in the West Indies first innings when the batsmen, Adams and Sarwan, did not get the benefit of reasonable doubt. There were two decisions on the final day, Adams and Walsh, when Pakistan got the rough end of the stick. In my view the umpiring was not unfair, it was just not up to the standard of such an exciting encounter.

Congratulations to the West Indies Team, and especially Captain Jimmy Adams, for bouncing back in ways that have given West Indies cricket fans reasons to cheer and feel good again.

As an aside I must mention that a few weekends ago I took my little daughter to her first cricket match. She had watched many matches on television with me, in addition to being around when I was listening to matches on the radio. As we watched the game in progress she was able to identify the batters, as she called them, the bowlers, the fieldsmen and wicket. Then all of a sudden she asked me, Daddy where are the talkers?

In seeing live cricket for the first time she was applying her television and radio concept of cricket, which comes with commentary. As far as she was concerned commentary was part of cricket. After I was finished explaining that cricket is usually played without commentary I could not help laughing but also reflecting on how important it is in bringing up children today to expose them to the real things because so much of our present world is virtual, staring with the television and going even further with the computer. It is one thing to watch on television or simulate on the computer, it is quite another thing to see and touch and feel and taste and hear in reality. There is virtually no substitute for real experience.

Errol Miller is Professor and head of the Institute of Education, UWI, Mona.

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