FINALWORD
Tym Glaser
THERE ARE good sweeps, bad sweeps and some really ugly ones.
The West Indies one-day sweep of Bangladesh, which was completed earlier this week, definitely fell into the latter category.
Bangladesh are not the worst international team going around, that honour belongs to the train wreck formerly known as Zimbabwe, but minnows are minnows and the Asians are definitely small fry.
For the West Indies to limp home in the first game by one wicket chasing an extremely moderate total of less than 150 and then eke out two further tight victories in rain-shortened games show just how far the mighty have fallen.
Sure, there was no Brian Lara to rally the troops and put an ordinary bowling attack to the sword but that's hardly an excuse for a lacklustre performance against a team which wins an international match about as often as Halley's Comet passes by.
The visitors, in fact, came out of the three-match series with their reputations and pride intact, and probably even enhanced.
They played within their limitations, were tactically astute and performed with passion.
That cannot be said for the hosts who appeared to think the series would be a walk in the park where it was just a matter of rolling the arm over, smashing a few balls and then heading back to the hotel.
Serious flaws in the regional team were further exposed.
Fill-in skipper Ramnaresh Sarwan still has a lot to learn about the art of captaincy. His field placement was not bad but his bowling changes lacked imagination.
The batting, without the greatness of Lara, remains brittle. Seasoned campaigners like Chris Gayle and Shiv Chanderpaul, who should have torn that attack apart,
fell off the planet. While Sarwan continues to throw his wicket way with reckless abandon.
The Smith boys, Dwayne and Devon, showed some promise and Tino Best and Fidel Edwards loom as a potentially top strike tandem but there was far more lost than gained from those three one-dayers and the West Indies must put up a far better performance in the coming two-Test series against Bangladesh.
Lara will be back in the fold and that will make a huge difference; plus, the visitors' obvious weaknesses should be more easily exposed in the expanded version of the game.
However, this tour was supposed to be little more than a warm-up as the Windies prepare for England and a learning experience for the lowest ranked Test side. Let's hope the West Indies have learned something as well because they just aren't as good as they think they are.
