Tony BeccaTHE WEST Indies ended 2005 ranked at number eight out of 10 in both the ICC's Test and one-day rankings, and for a team that for so long was one of the best in the world in both versions of the game, for a team that for a time was the best, that was disappointing.
What was even more disappointing, however, what really underlined the poor performances of the team, was the fact that in the individual rankings in both the Test and one-day versions of the game, there was hardly a West Indian anywhere to be seen.
In the Test rankings, although Brian Lara finished number two behind Australia's Ricky Ponting in the batting, Shivnarine Chanderpaul at number 12 was the only other West Indian in the top 20; and although there was one Zimbabwean numbered among the top 20 bowlers, there was not even one West Indian in that company.
And it was hardly any different in the one-day version where Christopher Gayle and Ramnaresh Sarwan ended the year at number six and number 14 respectively in the batting, and where Ian Bradshaw, at number 20, was the only West Indian bowler in the top 20.
little respect for ranking
Although there are those with little respect for the ranking system and especially so after Chanderpaul moved up one position following scores of two, seven, 39, 10, 25 and four in Australia, the rankings seem fair and on the ball.
In other words, the West Indies, on both counts, collectively and individually, deserve to be ranked at number eight in both versions of the game, just above Zimbabwe and Bangladesh who are ranked at nine and 10 respectively in both versions.
The West Indies performance has been so poor that like the early days when George Headley was the only West Indian who could get into a World XI, Lara is the only West Indian who can get into a World XI today a far cry from the 1950s, the 1960s, and the glory days of the 1970s going into the 1980s.
In the 1950s, for example, the West Indies boasted batsmen like Frank Worrell, Everton Weekes and Clyde Walcott plus two bowlers like Sonny Ramadhin and Alfred Valentine, five players who were among the best of their time.
In the 1960s, the 12 players who gathered in England to represent the Rest of the World against England included Gary Sobers, Rohan Kanhai, Conrad Hunte, Lance Gibbs, Wes Hall and Charlie Griffith.
In the 1970s going into the 1980s, the West Indies, the best in the world at that time, boasted batsmen like Viv Richards, Lawrence Rowe, Alvin Kallicharran, Clive Lloyd, Roy Fredericks, Gordon Greenidge and Desmond Haynes, a wicketkeeper like Jeffrey Dujon, and bowlers like Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, Joel Garner and Malcolm Marshall all of whom, at one time or the other, would have been on a short list for any World XI at the time, most of whom would have been automatic selections.
Times have changed, and the year-ending ICC individual ranking lists underline that. The team, once among the best and for a long time the best in the world, the team that produced some of the world's greatest players, certainly from the coming of the '3Ws' in the late 1940s to the end of Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh a few years ago, is now back to square one where, as it was in the 1930s during the days of Headley, it has only one player of quality, one player, also a batsman, good enough to line-up with the world's best.
