By Tony Becca - From The Boundary 
TO THOSE who have been saying that the West Indies have turned the corner, the performance in the first Test against India in Mumbai must have been a bitter disappointment in every way.
The West Indies were out-gunned in every department of the game while losing by an innings and 112 runs inside four days.
After a first-day bowling performance which bordered on the embarrassing, after dropping catches, some of which were so easy that it was embarrassing, the West Indies turned up with a batting performance that was more than embarrassing. It was pathetic.
But for Shivnarine Chanderpaul who fought like in a tiger in both innings, the West Indies batsmen were like lambs to the slaughter, and contrary to what some are saying, it had nothing to do with the heat or the pitch.
The problem was simply a lack of technique to the swing bowling of left-arm pacer Zaheer Khan, and the spin of right-arm legspinner Anil Kumble and offspinner Harbhajan Singh.
The truth is that despite the talent of a few of the batsmen, the team, as a Test team, is weak, and until that is recognised or accepted, until those in the corridors of power, those in the position to guide the development of West Indies cricket realise that the problem is not with the players who are sent into the battle, but with the general standard of West Indies cricket, nothing will change.
West Indies cricket is weak. It is weak at the club level, because of that it is weak at the first-class level, and if it is weak at that level, the players who are selected to represent the West Indies will not be ready, will not be prepared to compete against the best.
It is as simple as that.
West Indies cricket needs to go back to the grassroots and encourage the clubs so that there can be proper development and strong competitions at that level - the kind of development and competitions that will produce players who are skilled, who are physically and mentally tough, and who will test and therefore develop the skills of those around them.
Right now, bowlers in the West Indies cannot even bowl a good line and length consistently much more swing or spin the ball enough or consistently enough to cut down good batsmen - not even on pitches on which their batsmen look so inept.
On a pitch on which the bowling was so innocuous on the first day, a pitch on which Mervyn Dillon and company looked pedestrian, on a pitch on which, but for a few deliveries on the second day, right-arm legspinner Mahendra Nagamootoo hardly got the ball to spin, on a pitch on which Virender Sehwag treated them with impunity, the West Indies batsmen fumbled like novices, and that was the embarrassment.
The embarrassment was not that they were skittled for 157 and then for 188 after reaching 105 for one. The embarrassment was how they allowed the Indian bowlers to dominate them, how they groped and plodded forward and allowed the bowlers to do whatever they pleased and to drop into a rhythm before, in desperation, they, the best batsmen in the West Indies, played across the line and slit their own throats.
A few, like Ramnaresh Sarwan and Ridley Jacobs, did not play across the line but their performance was just as pathetic.
It will be a long time before even his most ardent admirers will forget the sight of Sarwan against Singh and Kumble - particularly in the second innings before, in frustration, he hit at a short delivery from the legspinner and tapped a catch into the covers.
Jacobs' dismissal in both innings will probably never ever be forgotten by West Indians.
In the first innings, the experienced left-hander stretched to a short, wide, slower delivery from Khan and spooned a catch into the covers; and in the second, he stretched and steered a short, wide delivery from Kumble to gully.
There can be no excuse for the West Indies performance in the first Test - certainly not for their batting. It has always been hot in India, the pitches have always been the same, Indian spinners, like West Indian fast bowlers, have always bowled well on them, this is not the first West Indies to play in India, West Indies teams have been touring India since 1948-49, and lest it be forgotten, despite quality spinners like Gupte and Mankad, Chandrasekhar, Bedi, Prasanna and Venkataraghavan, the likes of Allan Rae, Everton Weekes, Gary Sobers, Conrad Hunte, and Roy Fredericks have scored centuries in Mumbai and Clive Lloyd once smashed 242 not out.
