Tony Cozier feels the West Indies require a change in attitude with regard to pre-match preparation
Tony Cozier15-Sep-2007
A West Indian fan watches his team get eliminated © Getty Images
One of Ramnaresh Sarwan’s comments following the West Indies’ loss to Bangladesh on Thursday that eliminated them from the ICC World Twenty20 tournament at the first stage was typical of recent captains.”It is a matter of us going back and working hard,” he observed, noting that the West Indies return to South Africa in December for a series of three Tests and five ODIs. He also acknowledged, with unusual candor, that “we’ve been saying this for the longest while about our fielding and bowling and sometimes our batting”.It was the fielding and bowling that were mainly responsible for the losses to South Africa in the opening match on Tuesday night and to Bangladesh two days later. Three critical outfield catches were missed and a record 23 wides conceded in the former. The count in the latter was one straightforward chance to third man that would have changed the course of the match and eight wides.There were fumbles and errors, even by the supposedly better fielders, and the stumps weren’t hit once on run out attempts. All the bowlers were clearly intimidated by batsmen who came at them hard.The statistics were simply a repetition of those of recent times and are a certain reflection of a lack of practice and preparation. These are two areas to which the West Indies have given scant attention since Denis Waight, the tough Australian trainer, whipped Clive Lloyd’s champion teams into the fittest of their generation.Sarwan’s latest sentiments echoed those of Brian Lara, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Carl Hooper, Jimmy Adams and Courtney Walsh during their time at the helm. The problem is that the words have not been matched by action.As the latest captain, Sarwan is in a position to insist that “going back and working hard” means just that, not going back and failing to follow the detailed individual programmes prepared by interim coach David Moore and seconded trainer Richard Smith.The new captain’s plea for a camp to prepare the team for the World Twenty20 was reportedly turned down because of the continuing financial plight of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) which could not afford the cost of staging even a week-long session. Yet fleeting get-togethers prior to tours have been held before with little effect.
Carl Hooper and Brian Lara, vice-captain and captain on the 1998-99 tour of South Africa, grumbled that trainer Denis Waight’s regime, which had so benefited earlier teams, was too taxing on the players © AFP
As coaches, from Rohan Kanhai to Roger Harper to Bennett King, and trainers, from Waight to Ronald Rogers to Bryce Cavanagh, have noted, the only benefits are derived from the players’ complete commitment to practice and to fitness schedules.That requires an absolute change in an attitude that has become deep-rooted and has coincided directly with the steep decline in fortunes over the last 15 years. Lara and Hooper, captain and vice-captain on the 1998-99 tour of South Africa, grumbled that Waight’s regime, which had so benefited earlier teams, was too taxing on the players. It was duly reduced and, within a year, Waight was gone, for a period with Pakistan and then retirement.Rogers, formerly of the Trinidad and Tobago Regiment, took his place before resigning after three years to pursue a university degree. Cavanagh, like Waight an Australian who had worked in rugby league clubs, took over but quit midway through the tour of Pakistan last November, frustrated by the lack of response from his charges to his methods.Harper was in South Africa for the World Twenty20 as coach of Kenya, a post he now leaves after their elimination. He repeated the comment this week he made at the end of his three-year contract as West Indies coach following the 2003 World Cup.He stated that the current players have developed through a culture that does not have the same approach to the game as the West Indian players of the past. “The love for the game, the desire to learn all about it and to master it has to be inculcated at an early age and that is what is necessary through well-structured development programmes,” he added.That clearly will take time and effort but Sarwan, in conjunction with the new coach and fitness coordinator, to be soon appointed, and with key players under permanent contracts to the WICB, has a role in ensuring that those under him really get back to working hard. Otherwise, they will continue to be the embarrassment they were again here this week.
