Wanted! new West Indies team -- failures, underachievers need not apply By Donald Duff Stabroek News June 2, 1999 "WANTED! New West Indies team. Repeated failures, underachievers, not apply." Were the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) to place such an advertisement across the region, few cricket fans would quibble over its placing or wording. Such a measure might actually be applauded by some. Faced with their latest disastrous performance at the seventh World Cup in England, the general consensus is that the time is opportune for radical reforms in the sport and the West Indies team. Compiling a new team should take immediate precedence, now that the latest experiment by the selectors has met similar results as those of a not too bright schoolboy attempting to build his first bomb in the school's chemistry laboratory. The resultant explosion (not in the chemistry lab) has had far reaching and wide ranging consequences. The WICB should immediately organise a retreat at its Antigua headquarters to analyze the recent tour and search for solutions to the way forward for a sport that has been repeatedly shamed by the performance of its representative teams. The WICB will need to take a critical look at its modus operandi as well as at the performance of its selection panel headed by chairman Mike Findlay. The Board has been guilty of not taking the players' welfare first and foremost into consideration when arranging tours both at home and away. Take for example, the number of games which the team has had to play--to the benefit of WICB coffers--without due regard being shown for the players' welfare. Surely this could be a contributory factor to the teams' indifferent performances. Theirs is a demanding schedule with little time to recuperate from injury or to be with family members between tours; as was seen in the recent tour to South Africa by the team and Australia's tour of the Caribbean. Then on the heels of the latter, the World Cup. The selectors lack vision (or perhaps have too much?). Players are selected after one good performance only (Hendy Bryan), while others (Phil Simmons, Keith Arthurton and Stuart Williams) are recycled with great regularity despite their repeated and well documented failures. It was bad judgement for the selectors to chose their World Cup team so late, thus failing to give players a longer period to adjust to each other on and off the field and to build their confidences. But perhaps the selectors' greatest failing was their inability to inject new blood into the team. Once a player has established himself in the team he is continually selected regardless of his form. While it is understood that players tend to lose form now and then, dropping players who perform poorly might cause them to fight hard to regain their place and fight even harder to keep it. A look at South Africa and Pakistan, two of the most successful teams so far at the World Cup, will show that there are many new players around the ages of 22 to 26 years who have been given the opportunity to perform. South Africa's team includes players like Mark Boucher, 22; Jacques Kallis, 23; Herschelle Gibbs, 25; and Shaun Pollok, 26. Pakistan has exposed an even younger crop of players like Sahid Afridi and Abdul Razzak both 19 years old; Saqlain Mushtaq, 22; Shoaib Akhtar and Azar Mahmood both 24 years old and Yusuf Youhana, 25. These players have the hunger and the desire to succeed, fuelled by the enthusiasm and the audacity of youth. It is youths to whom the West Indies selectors will now have to turn to revive the fortunes of the team. But, given the present crop of youngsters around, both the selectors and the public will need patience as success might be long in coming. In the interim the WICB can turn its attention to the under-15 and under-19 regional tournaments. Reforms should also take into account cricket in schools, especially secondary schools, for it is from here that the nucleus of future West Indies players should emerge. Of utmost importance will be coaches for all levels of junior cricket so that by the time a player reaches 19 or 20 years old, he is properly schooled in the art of the game and ready to take his place on the West Indies team should an opening present itself. The Caribbean has always relied more on natural talent as opposed to other countries which tend to favour proper coaching methods for their successes. With the new millennium imminent, outdated methods (and non-performing members of the West Indies team) should go out of the window. New methods should be incorporated and use made of modern technology and advanced coaching techniques. This hopefully could result in a better cricket infrastructure and ultimately, a team the region can be proud of. A © page from: Guyana: Land of Six Peoples