THROUGH THE COVERS: Serious stuff is in the offing
By Zaheer Abbas
THE series between Australia and West Indies is clearly the first serious cricketing event after the World Cup. In the last about a year, the West Indies has clearly shown signs of resurgence, nothing even remotely close to what it was in the 1970s and the ‘80s, but certainly far from what it was in the ‘90s.
No one can deny the fact that the return to the side of Carl Hooper was the turning point for the West Indians who were down in the dumps and had touched the rock bottom while going down without a fight against New Zealand. At the time of his appointment as captain, there were many who had openly doubted his credentials. Indeed, his commitment to the cause of West Indies cricket was questioned. His appointment was also criticized on account of being ‘a step backwards’, and it was argued that the management should have appointed some fresh face to turn things around for the team. How wrong can pundits be!
During his tenure, Hooper quite visibly had a calming influence on the team. He was the elderly statesman all and sundry looked up to in times of crisis of which there is no dearth when a team is struggling. It was under him that players like Ramnaresh Sarwan, Chris Gayle, Wavell Hinds and Marlon Samuels, to name a few, made their mark in international cricket, and gained confidence with every match, even when results were still not favouring the side. This, indeed, is a rare phenomenon. It is always easy to induct fresh faces and groom them under the wings of a winning captain, but almost impossible to do the same when a side is on an unduly long losing streak. That Hooper was able to do it is not in doubt.
But that was not all that Hooper managed in his tenure. The West Indians have always been a fractious side because they are not a conventional nation. They, the group of independent islands, come together only for cricketing purposes, and that is bound to create intense inter-island rivalry which it actually does. When positive results stop coming in, even the most united of sides begin to have problems. In the case of West Indies, the problems are as intense as the inter-island rivalry.
This was one of the major ills that were afflicting West Indies in the years before Hooper took over. In his unassuming and silent manner, he took care of all the issues, and brought out the best in seniors like Brian Lara and Shivnarine Chanderpaul, with the result that the world after a long time was able to see Lara at his vintage best in recent times.
I was kind of sad when I read in the newspapers that Hooper had withdrawn from the side after being named to face the touring Australians. There is something in his manner of withdrawal that suggests that there is more to it than what has come to surface till now. If so, it is in indication that internal bickering might again be setting in. After all the hard work put in by Hooper, there may be few who want to build on that platform and take credit for it.
As for the Australians, they are without Glenn McGrath, Damien Martin and, of course, Shane Warne. They showed in the World Cup that they have an impressive reserve of players to fall back upon, but this time round it is Test cricket, and they are likely to feel the pinch in terms of depleted bowling resources. McGrath and Warne, the readers would remember, represented one of the most lethal bowling combinations in any type of cricket. So their presence will be felt. This, in turn, would put pressure on Steven Waugh for whom even a hard-fought series may cause a few problems in terms of extending his career beyond the tour.
THE series between Australia and West Indies is clearly the first serious cricketing event after the World Cup. In the last about a year, the West Indies has clearly shown signs of resurgence, nothing even remotely close to what it was in the 1970s and the ‘80s, but certainly far from what it was in the ‘90s.
