Tony Becca
AFTER WATCHING the first day's play of the first Test match between West Indies and South Africa on Boxing Day, I heard some interesting news coming out of Australia.
It had nothing to do with Anil Kumble's magnificent bowling in Melbourne or even the splendid batting of Chris Gayle, Marlon Samuels and Shivnarine Chanderpaul in Port Elizabeth where the West Indies batsmen batted brilliantly.
The wonderful news was that Shane Warne, arguably the greatest spin bowler who ever lived, has been offered a position with Cricket Australia (CA) - a job during which he will not only coach spin bowling, but one in which he will teach spin bowling and will encourage domestic captains to use slow bowling properly.
Developing talent
"The work I'm going to be doing with young spinners and their state captains is a really important role and I believe I have a lot to offer," said Warne. "I've already had some contact with youngsters around the country, but to be able to work in a structured way will hopefully give teams an even greater understanding of how to develop spin talent."
When I heard the news I realised, for the umpteenth time in recent times, why Australia's cricket is now so strong and why the Australian team is so strong. It seems to me that Australian cricket is so strong because instead of waiting, like the West Indies, for some talented and gifted players to fall from the sky or to drop out of trees as coconuts and mangoes, CA plans; it spends time developing young cricketers, and its planning and development programmes include not only batsmen and fast bowlers, but also wicketkeepers, fielders, and most importantly, slow bowlers.
Warne retired in January, and Australia are not waiting for another like him to appear. Unlike the West Indies, they are working on producing slow bowlers, one of whom they hope will be a master spin bowler like Warne.
The reason why I find the offer to Warne interesting is not only that Australia, with fast bowlers like Brett Lee, Stuart Clark, Mitchell Johnson, Shaun Tait and Nathan Bracken, plus a pace bowling all-rounder like Shane Watson and an off-spin bowling all-rounder like Andrew Symonds, left out two of their five top-class fast bowlers to play a slow bowler. It it is not only that with Kumble and Harbhajan Singh in their attack, India played two slow bowlers and it has nothing to do with the fact that, in a 50-over one-day international in Auckland, New Zealand played one slow bowler in Daniel Vettori and Bangladesh played two in left-handers Abdur Razzak and Shakib al Hassan.
Proper spin bowling
The reason why I found it interesting is tha the best bowlers in their regional four-day competition for many seasons usually have been slow bowlers, the West Indies, the home of Sonny Ramadhin, Alfred Valentine and Lance Gibbs, have consistently turned their backs on slow bowlers.
Regardless of their performance, regardless of their performance in relation to that of the fast bowlers, the West Indies selectors always give the slow bowlers one Test match at a time, and regardless of what former coach Bennett King said about Gayle being a spin bowler before his belated exit, in the Test now playing in Port Elizabeth, there is no spin bowler in the West Indies team.
While South Africa, for example, left out Shaun Pollock for left-arm slow bowler Paul Harris, with all-rounder Dwayne Bravo being a pace bowler, with Daren Sammy being a pace bowler and with specialists Jerome Taylor, Fidel Edwards and Daren Powell all being pace bowlers, the West Indies went into the Test match with pace, and despite the presence of Gayle and Samuels who pretend to spin the ball, nothing but pace.
As one who has always believed that the failure of West Indies' spin bowlers to really dominate regional cricket and, more importantly, to take more wickets in Test matches is due not so much to their lack of skill, but more to the lack of ability of West Indies captains to captain spin bowlers, it was also interesting to hear that apart from teaching youngsters how to spin the ball and how to bowl spin, that apart from encouraging teams to use spin bowlers, Warne will also be encouraging captains to use spin bowling properly.
I will never forget the attempts by Richie Richardson, Courtney Walsh, Carl Hooper and even Brian Lara to set fields for the likes of Rajendra Dhanraj and Dinanath Ramnarine.
They were all disappointing and, apart from the bias of the selectors, that, the inability to set fields for them, may well be the reason the treatment to two like Dave Mohammed and Omari Banks.
Two wishes
Although it was not yet New Year's Eve, when I heard the news about Warne involvement's with Australian cricket, I made two wishes - two simple wishes.
The first wish was that the West Indies will, as quickly as possible, follow Australia's example to develop spin bowling and to put more emphasis upon spin bowling; and with a champion spinner like Gibbs still around, the second wish was that the West Indies do not go to Australia to get someone to teach West Indians how to spin a cricket ball.
According to James Sutherland, chief executive officer of CA, Warne is "someone with a true passion for Australian cricket and when you combine that with his obvious expertise, it is a very exciting prospect".
Apart from asking which Australian has a passion for West Indies cricket, Gibbs, no doubt about it, has a passion for West Indies cricket, and with his obvious expertise, his presence, his teaching of spin bowling to young West Indians, would be great for West Indies cricket.
