THROUGH THE COVERS: West Indies about to turn the corner
By Zaheer Abbas
IN the last few weeks, I could not touch upon much of the cricketing activity that was going on around the world, as things here at home were on my mind. The ongoing mismanagement was, and remains, rather irksome, and made me put pen to paper more than once.
What I said did strike a note in many a heart, but failed miserably when it mattered the most. I mean the PCB refused to pay any heed to this wake-up call, preferring to enjoy the deep slumber in which it has been in for a while now.
And, frankly, it was only to be expected. Just try to think of even a single incident when someone in authority gave any credence to the words of sanity from outside his immediate coterie of sycophants and soothsayers, who, on their part, do their best to drown out such voices. There was no realistic reason to hope that my case would have been any different. And it wasn’t.
It is time to move on and leave the fate of Pakistan cricket in the hands of the sitting PCB management even though it hurts to be unable to do anything concrete to set things right in an area that has been my life. But that, I guess, is life.
In one of my earlier columns, I had said everyone had two teams; his own and the West Indies. While my own team is not doing anything worthwhile, it has been a pleasure watching the West Indians play close to their potential in the last couple of months. Though they lost the Test series 3-1 and the One-Day series 4-3 to Australia, it is fair to say that they did not disgrace themselves.
While much has been written in the media around the world about that record-breaking victory in the fourth Test, let us not forget that even in the matches that they had lost prior to that, the West Indians had shown glimpses of the fighting spirit that had been their trade mark in the years gone by.
In the last decade or so, the reason why the West Indians were struggling so abysmally was the lack of self-belief and fighting spirit in the team. They probably had a better side than what they now have, but the results were just not there. They had the services of Curtley Ambrose and Courtney Walsh. Brian Lara was there, and they still had Carl Hooper in the side. Three of them are no more part of the outfit, with only Lara having survived.
But the introduction of the younger brigade has done a world of good to the West Indian side. They still crumble under pressure, like they did in the first two One day Internationals against the Sri Lankans, doing all the wrong things when it mattered the most, and losing the game from potentially winning situations. But, then, they didn’t crumble against the mighty Australians in that record-breaking feat. And that was no mean effort.
As far as I am concerned, the West Indians are truly on the rebound. With players like Chris Gayle, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Wavel Hinds and Marlon Samuels likely to form the nucleus of the side for the next decade or so, they have a solid and typically pugnacious batting lineup in place. While the bowling is still struggling, there are signs that must have given strength to the planners in the West Indies on this count as well.
Though all their victories in the last couple of months have come at the dead end of the series — 3-1 in Tests, 4-3 in the Onedayers against Australia, and 2-1 against the Sri Lankans — the team’s body language suggests the players are about to turn the corner. The contribution of Hooper to this effort must not be forgotten. It’s a pity that he is not around to take due credit.
IN the last few weeks, I could not touch upon much of the cricketing activity that was going on around the world, as things here at home were on my mind. The ongoing mismanagement was, and remains, rather irksome, and made me put pen to paper more than once.
