Tony Becca

If you listen to coach Bennett King and captain Brian Lara, and, of course, those players who have been quoted daily in the media, the West Indies did well on their three-month tour of Asia - and depending on how you look at it, on how you rate the team and on what you expected, probably they did do well.

Although the West Indies are rated number eight in the world rankings, however, they were once the best in the world.

To me, they are better than what their ranking suggests and what I would have expected from Zimbabwe, this present Zimbabwe team, and from Bangladesh, I certainly do not expect from the West Indies - not in one-day cricket in which the difference in quality between sides sometimes does not matter in a match, and not from a team that includes batsmen like Brian Lara, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Chris Gayle and Ramnaresh Sarwan an all-rounder like Dwayne Bravo, bowlers like Jerome Taylor, Corey Collymore, Ian Bradshaw, and lest we forgot him, one like Fidel Edwards.

Deliver so little

On top of that, apart from Runako Morton, there are other batsmen who promise so much but deliver so little, others like Marlon Samuels and Dwayne Smith.

In the three months in Asia, and not including the qualifying matches for the ICC Champions Trophy against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh, the West Indies played 15 one-day matches, five in the DFL Cup in Malaysia, six, including the qualifying match against Sri Lanka, in the ICC Champions Trophy in India, four against Pakistan in Pakistan, and although they got to two finals, they won only six matches and lost nine.

In the group stage of the three-team DFL Cup, the West Indies lost to Australia and India while defeating India and Australia on their way to the final, in the eight-team ICC Champions Trophy, they lost to Sri Lanka in the qualifying stage, they defeated Australia and India and lost to England before defeating South Africa in the semis-final, they lost the two finals to Australia and they lost 3-1 in Pakistan.

While that record may have been satisfactory for Zimbabwe or Bangladesh, it should not be satisfactory for the West Indies - and especially so when, after falling for 113 replying to Australia's 240 for six, after scoring 138 batting first, they were soundly beaten in both finals.

Regardless of what King and Lara may say, maybe in the hope of motivating their players, it should also be remembered that the one match the West Indies won in Pakistan, the home team were short of their three top batsmen and four of the top bowlers.

Lest it be forgotten, the West Indies, for a long time, were numbered among the best in the world and for some time they were the best and the most feared in the world.

Not good enough

No sir, although it appears to some that the West Indies performance was better than expected, even though it may have been as good as could have been expected from the team ranked so low, it was not good enough for me.

It was not good enough because of the poor technique displayed by most of the batsmen against some quality swing bowling on slow pitches; and in terms of everything, the batting, the bowling - the fielding, on the ground and in the air - and the captaincy, the inconsistency which plagued the team.

While there were days, although hardly, if ever, on the same day, when the team batted well, bowled well and fielded well, those days were few and far between. One day they were brilliant but for the next many days they were disappointing, sometimes embarrassing.

And to an extent, the same goes for the captain, and especially so in the final match.

Somebody, for example, should explain why, with Lara dismissed in the 44th over at 200 for four, with Chanderpaul ailing and using a runner, Denesh Ramdin was promoted to bat ahead of batsman Runako Morton and the hard-hitting, sometimes, all-rounder Smith, and why, with Pakistan chasing 238 for victory and going well, with Daren Powell opening the bowling and, with eight runs coming off his first four overs, bowling well, Lara moved him to the opposite end and to disastrous results.

The West Indies can win the World Cup but they will have to play better, much better, in every department than they did in Malaysia, India and Pakistan over the past three months.