Tony Becca

The West Indies take on Australia in their opening match in the ICC Champions Trophy tomorrow at the Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai, and Australia, the favourites to win the match and the title, should be too good for the Windies.

According to captain Brian Lara, however, the West Indies, the defending champions, could win the match and the title. And despite the tendency of their batting to collapse inexplicable, there are others, including myself, who believe that although the odds must be stacked against both eventualities, that the West Indies can win both the match and the title.

Not willing to bet

The reason why the West Indies can win is simply because it is a 50-over affair, that the shorter the contest is in cricket, the more the gap between teams decreases, that in Chris Gayle, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Ramnaresh Sarwan, the West Indies possess a few batsmen who on their day and on a good pitch can destroy any attack.

There is hardly a cricket fan in the West Indies, however, who is willing to bet a penny on the West Indies - for the simple reason that their batsmen seem not to know what to do on pitches that are not tailor-made for batting, and that their batsmen seem not to know what to do against bowlers who swing the ball or who spin the ball.

In fact, their batsmen, most of them, seem hardly capable of even surviving against what should be normal bowling - the type which simply drops the ball on a spot. That seems to happen every other day, with the latest being against Sri Lanka last Saturday.

In an unbelievable performance, the West Indies, with eight specialist batsmen plus the wicketkeeper/batsman Carlton Baugh Jnr. in their line-up, were routed for 80 runs, and this time there can be no talk about one or two of their batsmen being given out when they were not out.

In fact, star batsman Lara appeared to have been out leg before wicket twice before he was eventually given out.

As disappointing as the score was, the real embarrassment was the way in which the batsmen got out.

With the exception of Chander-paul, who was cut down by a beauty delivered by Lasith Malinga, the West Indies batsmen, who, like their bowlers have been criticising regional groundsmen for preparing slow pitches, batted as if they had never seen a slow pitch before and were cut down like novices - none more so than Dwayne Bravo, Marlon Samuels, Dwayne Smith and Baugh.

Can the West Indies really win tomorrow's match and make a good start in defence of the trophy?

Cricket is a game of bat and ball. You cannot win a match unless you score runs and unless, in limited over matches, you can limit the opposing team to less than what you made, because of that a team needs not only batsmen - not only those who are supposed to be able to bat, but also bowlers, and it is high time the West Indies realise that and stop going into matches with eight so-called batsmen - some of whom can bowl a bit, a wicketkeeper-batsman, and two bowlers.

Specialist bowlers needed

The West Indies need no more than six best specialist batsmen and a wicketkeeper who can bat. What they need, however, are four specialist bowlers whose job it is to get out or to limit the opposing batsmen.

In a 50-over match, even that is short of one bowler, but just as you expect the bowlers to help out if the batting runs short, so should the batsmen on this West Indies team be expected, not to be the bowlers, but to support their bowlers.

With Corey Collymore home to witness the birth of his first child, the West Indies have only three specialist bowlers in India and so cannot go in, this time, with four specialist bowlers.

They should, however, go in with the three available with the likes of Bravo, Gayle, and Samuels to support them.