WI’s Test match stocks stay down and having a clutch of uncapped players on their tour of Australia can be only attributed to the lure of franchise cricket, a problem which doesn’t have an easy solution
Alick Athanaze of the West Indies leaves the ball only to be bowled by Australia’s Josh Hazelwood on Day One of the first Test at the Adelaide Oval. Pic/Getty Images
In a different era, the cricketing world viewed an Australia v West Indies Test series Down Under as the world championship of cricket. Yes, even the 1975-76 one was called that before Clive Lloyd’s suffered a 1-5 shellacking at the hands of Greg Chappell’s Australians less than a year after Lloyd lifted the inaugural World Cup. Just like some from that Australian team who endured a 0-4 thrashing in South Africa six seasons prior to that summer, the West Indies team at the receiving end in 1975-76 weren’t so bad as the scoreline suggested.
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It probably won’t be quite the same at the two-match Australia v West Indies Test series which began in Adelaide on Wednesday. For, skipper Kraigg Brathwaite has travelled to Australia with seven uncapped players.
Former captain Jason Holder and middle-order batsman Kyle Mayers are not on the tour after spurning central contracts to play white-ball cricket. There is no Shai Hope and Nicholas Pooran as well. Thus, to say that the West Indies are under-strength Down Under would be an understatement.
The West Indies’s former player Jeff Dujon, who did duty behind the stumps in five Test series against Australia from 1981-82 to 1990-91, pulled no punches the other day. “It’s a bit of an embarrassment, because Australia doesn’t suffer from the same situation like us. Maybe their players are more patriotic, but this is like sending lambs to the slaughter. It would have been better if we had sent a young team like this to play a weaker nation, but I don’t think there’s a whole lot to be gained sending a team with seven debutants against a team so experienced, established and powerful,” Dujon was quoted as saying in the Jamaica Gleaner.
Joseph ‘Reds’ Perreira, the veteran broadcaster, told me on Monday that as much as he respects Dujon as a person, commentator and his cricketing deeds (Dujon did not know what it was to lose a Test series in a maroon cap), he wonders what the former stumper would have done had he been a selector. “I think it [Dujon’s view] was not said taking the situation facing [selectors] Desmond Haynes and Roland Butcher. They were hamstrung. Holder turned down a contract. Hope refused to tour and Brandon King, a tremendously gifted player, turned down the opportunity. Had West Indies had all these players it would have been a different story in Australia,” said Reds.
You don’t need a genius to tell you that franchise cricket is killing Test cricket. But one genius—Brian Lara—said the other day: “I mean, we’ve got to face the facts. The franchise cricket that is being played around the world, it is very difficult for the West Indies Cricket Board to compete with such lucrative opportunities that our cricketers have,” Lara told SEN Sportsday.
Not being a rich board is a mighty problem for the West Indies. Reds says they must get a good “share of the ICC cake” so that players can be better paid. He clearly sees the writing on the wall if Caribbean coffers don’t swell.
Meanwhile, cricket enthusiasts who adored the West Indies of past eras can’t help turning back the clock to, in a way, appease their heavy cricket-loving hearts. I was old enough to closely follow the West Indies in Australia Test series in 1984-85, Australia’s first home season without the retired Greg Chappell, Dennis Lillee and Rod Marsh. The West Indies were at their rampaging best. Australian cricket was in doldrums and Allan Border hadn’t really settled into the captaincy, taking over mid-series from Kim Hughes.
Everyone expected Australia to lose the series and they did. The West Indies were too formidable for an air of optimism to be produced for the hosts. But Border, writing a pre-series piece for the Australian Cricket magazine before he became captain, provided a glimpse of the team’s attitude facing up to Clive
Lloyd’s champion outfit. He wrote: “Kim Hughes [captain], manager Bob Merriman and I talked to every player individually about what’s wrong with Australian cricket and what role each player thought he had to play. From every player came the same response: ‘Let’s get together, put our heads down and beat
these West Indians.’ ”
When Lillee was asked what he felt after the West Indies annihilated Australia in the opening Test at Perth, he said: “I saw a great side beating a team which had lost three very experienced players, and only, time and experience will rectify that.”
Lloyd’s side had already sealed the series before the final Test at Sydney, where Border’s team scored a massive victory through spinners Bob Holland and Murray Bennett and not to forget Kepler Wessels’s 173.
Border, as journalist Mike Coward once said, gave Australian cricket the kiss of life. That Border didn’t have the pleasure of beating the West Indies in a Test series shouldn’t chip away at his greatness as a player and captain. Only yesterday Lara mentioned on air that Border was his hero. He pointed to his fellow southpaw’s unbeaten knocks of 98 and 100 in the Trinidad Test of 1983-84.
Border’s successor Mark Taylor managed to beat the West Indies in 1994-95 and the Australians have been unbeaten since. If anything, it drives home a truth - times change, no domination is permanent. The question is, are the young West Indians going to believe that and treat this Australia tour and the encouraging Day One performance at Adelaide as a starting point?
mid-day’s group sports editor Clayton Murzello is a purist with an open stance. He tweets @ClaytonMurzello
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The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper
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