EARL BEST considers some unsatisfactory aspects of the showing in Australia
Sulieman Benn reminds Brad Haddin he’ll see him outside.
Were it not for a controversial umpiring decision and a set of inflexible review rules in Australia last month, we might just have had a repeat of the 2004 Champions Trophy or the 1979 Lord’s World Cup final. Or a repetition of the world record-breaking fourth innings performance of Antigua 2003. But although it looked briefly like it would happen, although Chris Gayle’s uppity nobodies from the Caribbean threatened to upset the pommecythere cart by winning the Third Test, the miracle of Perth did not materialise. As expected, Ricky Ponting’s men retained the Frank Worrell Trophy, the margin an unexpected 2-0 instead of the 3-0 that most commentators had confidently predicted before the start of the three-Test series. Once the West Indians had lived down to their pre-tour billing and conceded the First Test by an innings and 65 runs, that confidence understandably became near certainty. But justifiably written off by the Australian media after that ignominious defeat, the WI picked themselves up and took the homesters to the verge of a draw in the series. And in so doing, they demonstrated to the world that everything the unsympathetic hometown press had said about them in the wake of the Brisbane capitulation was essentially true.
Nothing in the run-up to the November 26 start of the First Test could have inspired confidence in or optimism about a sterling West Indian performance. The squad selected for the tour comprised mainly players who had not played Test cricket for almost half a year and those who had played, had among themselves accumulated a total of less than ten matches of Test experience. In addition, injury had kept pacer Fidel Edwards out of the touring party and ruled his striking partner Jerome Taylor out of the only fixture scheduled to precede the first Test. If that was not enough, Gayle’s mother fell so seriously ill that her son had to fly back to Jamaica to be at her bedside. Not for the first time, the skipper was only able to rejoin the squad on the eve of the Brisbane Test. Perhaps understandably, Gayle failed to impress either as batsman or as leader in Brisbane. Fortunately, however, he put that behind him with such finality before Adelaide that he emerged as the Player of the Series at the end of the Third Test. And for good measure he demonstrated to critics and supporters alike that he was, in his own words, “the right man to lead the West Indies through this challenging period.”
But, as already noted, the skipper was not the only member of the squad to turn his game around after the First Test debacle. It is no secret that manager Joel Garner summoned an urgent team meeting in which the team performance was minutely examined and agreement reached on one vitally important point. All agreed that there could be no repetition of the Gabba performance; West Indies cricket simply could not afford it. In the event, in the broadest sense, there was no repeat of the feckless showing in Brisbane. But despite the all-round improvement in the collective performance, there remained unsatisfactory aspects of the West Indian performance with which the post-Brisbane meeting apparently did not deal. One can hardly fault the enhanced team spirit that was a noteworthy element of the side’s play both at Adelaide and at Perth. But in a strange way, although it first emerged in the second innings in Brisbane, the problem of the batsmen failing to appreciate the importance of subjugating their individual ambitions to the wider team goals continued to rear its head. That requires explanation.
Following on with a deficit of 252 runs at Brisbane, the WI made their way to 150 for the loss of five wickets with debutant opener Adrian Barath on 102. With wickets falling continually at the other end, the young T&T player had kept his concentration and his composure long enough to get to three figures despite the modest total. Significantly, a high percentage of Barath’s runs had come in boundaries, 19 blistering fours having come off his flashing blade. Once he reached his century, however, Barath celebrated in a fashion that led discerning observers to fear the worst.
Having taken his personal tally that far, he clearly removed the restraints that had helped to get him there. The team situation – still just about 100 runs behind - required that the restraints remain in place, that he take a new guard, settle back in and strive to take the team total up towards the first goal, accumulating enough runs to avoid an innings defeat. It never happened; the 19-year-old debutant seemed quite incapable of seeing anything beyond the three figures next to his name.
One thinks of Rohan Kanhai telling the almost 24-year-old Brian Lara after his magnificent 277 in Sydney in January 1993 that his “next innings begins at zero.” It may well be argued that the subsequent 375 at the Antigua Recreation Ground in 1994 and the 400 again almost exactly ten years later in 2004 may not have come without Kanhai’s timely observation in what was Lara’s fifth Test and ninth Test innings. But does the record show any such reminder when Barath had reached triple figures for the first time? Why is it that despite their familiarity with the multiple world record holder’s achievements, Barath in Brisbane, Bravo in Adelaide and Gayle in Perth all seemed to feel that reaching three figures amounted to conquering Everest? Whatever the answer to that question, at his age, Barath might be forgiven for making the mistake of ignoring the team situation. But what excuse does Gayle, veteran of over 80 Tests and scorer of over ten Test centuries, or Dwayne Bravo, then in his 33rd Test, have?
There is an interesting comparison to be made between Gayle’s 165 in the second innings at Adelaide and his gale-force 104 in Perth. Perhaps the West Indian batsman least given to grafting and defensive play, the explosive lefthander had completely eschewed impetuosity in this sedate innings, taking a completely uncharacteristic 441 minutes and 285 balls over his 11th Test century. Unlike Barath, whose post-three-figure celebration telegraphed his mental emancipation, Gayle’s was quiet, dignified even, bespeaking a commitment to carrying on with the constraints in place. Here was a man clearly appreciative of the need to lead from the front, a man completely committed to the cause of the team, a man acutely aware that should he fail, it would be all fall down for his team. In the event, his unbeaten innings with its 16 fours and one six represented just over 50 percent of the team total and it set up the possibility, albeit slight, of an unlikely West Indian win, inconceivable at the end of Day Three in Brisbane and not considered even a remote possibility at the end of the West Indian first innings in Adelaide.
Knowledgeable commentators have suggested that the presence of Joel Garner as team manager had a “sobering” effect on the team as a whole and on the skipper in particular. On the whole, what we saw in Adelaide made that easy to believe. But I think I saw Garner’s influence – I’m on thin ice here – in a far more telling area. When, in Perth, Gavin Tonge and Kemar Roach walked out to face the Australian music on the final day with their team needing all of 51 more runs for a remarkable win, there were many West Indian supporters who continued to believe in the possibility of a WI victory. Given the recent history of West Indian tails which have generally done little to inspire confidence in their ability to survive, this was nothing short of phenomenal. It is true that Edwards and Taylor have brought a new level-headedness to the batting of nine, ten, jack but that has usually enabled their team to draw matches, not to win them. What is beyond dispute is that both batsmen approached the task of getting the 50-odd runs they needed with a maturity that belied the difficulty of the task. One had the impression that a decision had been taken that Roach would defend stoutly while Tonge would be the aggressor, getting any runs that were there for the taking.
Which brings us perhaps to another aspect of the on-the-field action. We know in hindsight that Billy Bowden did not see the ball hit the edge of Kemar Roach’s bat; he opted to raise his finger on the evidence provided by his ears. Some will say that the vociferous concerted appeal of the Aussies was also a contributory factor. Now, Roach never hesitated for a second; immediately Bowden raised the crooked finger, Roach gave him the review sign. That does not necessarily mean that Roach did not think he had touched the ball but the video evidence did not show beyond reasonable doubt that he had not. The Third Umpire’s mandate is clear; he can only reverse a decision on the basis of conclusive evidence that the original decision was wrong. Roach may not have feathered the ball at all. But in the circumstances, wrong or right, the original decision had to stand because the evidence required to overturn it was simply not available. Or was it? The television slo-mos – including the hot spot – suggested that there had been no contact of bat on ball. Suggestions, alas, do not constitute reliable evidence. So is it reasonable to impute improper motives to the match officials who, as some would have us believe, are part of a conspiracy to ensure that the West Indies remain at or near the bottom of the Test pile?
And if the eighth-ranked WI have remained near the bottom of the nine-team Test pile, is the fault in our stars or in ourselves? I think it is also fair to ask whether, in light of subsequent events, the Brisbane rout is forgivable. Are we within our rights to wonder out loud whether the agenda for the post-Brisbane meeting could not have been drawn up in the run-up to Brisbane? Was there not sufficient evidence already available of the tendency of recent West Indian teams to self-destruct to allow Messrs Garner and David Williams to read Gayle and company the riot act ex ante facto? Did Brisbane, in short, have to happen before Adelaide and Perth could happen? What does that say about the state of our man management? Not for the first time, I found myself wondering whether the team meeting that preceded the West Indian second innings at Perth had focussed on occasions when the WI had managed to defy the odds and pull off an unexpected victory. Were the players treated to a re-run of the Deryck Murray and Andy Roberts partnership of 1979, the Bradshaw and Courtney Browne association of September 2004 or the match-winning work done by Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Ramnaresh Sarwan in 2003? In the event that film was not available – more evidence of lax management? - was there any discussion of these occasions, any attempt to tap into the synergies that made victory possible? Did anyone try to- if not recreate at least to understand the mindset that enabled Bradshaw and Brown, Murray and Roberts and the Guyanese pair to get the job done?
There are some people on the team who do not need to be reminded of what it means to play within their limitations. In Perth, Narsingh Deonarine and Brendan Nash demonstrated what was possible with patience and application. Contrary to what some have claimed for him, Nash is no Larry Gomes except in the sense that his approach while at the crease has earned him the right to be styled “Mr Dependable.” A very low percentage of his runs are scored in the arc extending forward from cover point to square-leg. Deonarine plays with a little more freedom in front of square but he does not have a very wide range of shots either.
But content to play unspectacular cricket, the pair carved out a long, almost 50-over 128-run partnership that tilted the balance of the match nicely in the West Indian favour. Were Bravo and the out-of-form Denesh Ramdin equally content to eschew the spectacular, the outcome of the match and of the series might well have been different. Significantly, apart from Gayle, none of the West Indian batsmen who played in more than one match had an average higher than Nash’s.
A final comment, then, about the issue of team discipline. I fear that in the long run, Team Manager Garner may have done more harm than good with his unfortunate comments about the Third Test incident involving Sulieman Benn, Michael Clarke and Brad Haddin. “They rapped two guys over the knuckles,” the ex-WI pacer is reported to have said, “and they killed the other guy.” While one understands that he feels the need to stand up for his players, Garner got it wrong. The first thing that needs to be said is that not all the players involved in an incident are necessarily equally guilty and therefore deserving of equal punishment. In the instant case, Benn was certainly within his rights to obstruct the non-striker as he sought to get at the ball but he did seem rather more aggressive than necessary when the Aussie wicketkeeper chose to tell him where to get off. And the decision to get physical and wag an accusatory finger in Haddin’s face was, at the very least, intemperate.
For me, then, Benn earned his two-match ban and I do not believe that the manager should have attempted to impute improper motives to the officials. With Gayle at their helm, the current bunch of West Indies players needs no encouragement to be impertinent, on the field or off it.
