This second and final instalment of this article continues to review the first two Tests of the current West Indies cricket tour of South Africa in which the regional team suffered two resounding defeats, bringing sadness to ardent Caribbean cricket fans at Christmas, a season normally marked by joy. The first instalment showed that although the West Indies were handicapped by the twin misfortunes of injuries and loss of the toss in both matches, there is a marked disparity between the two teams which largely explains the two massive defeats, one by 189 runs and the other by an innings and 65 runs.
Caribbean cricket fans were very disappointed with their team's ragged ground fielding, inaccurate throwing and poor catching. It is difficult to recall when was the last occasion a West Indies team dropped six catches (including some straightforward ones) in a Test innings, as occurred in the second Test.
However, ever more distressing than the fielding was the bowling, which was by far the most deplorable aspect of the team's performance. With the exception of the pre-lunch session on the second day of the first Test, the West Indies bowling was almost invariably too short, too full and too wide. The able South African batsmen relished, and dealt severely with, the regular offerings of long hops, full tosses, half volleys and wide deliveries which they received.
The weakness of the West Indies bowling was clearly reflected in four features of the Tests, namely, the massive totals of the South Africans (561 and 658), their quick scoring, the large number of boundaries in their scoring strokes and the economy rate of the bowlers.
These features were evident from the first day's play of the Test series when the South Africans amassed 368 runs, including 50 fours and 2 sixes, for the loss of only 3 wickets off 90 overs. Fidel Edwards conceded 12 fours in 19 overs, Vasbert Drakes 11 fours in 19 overs, Wavell Hinds 7 fours in 9 overs and Corey Collymore 13 fours and one six in his 17 overs, which yielded 88 runs. Only Merv Dillon, whose 20 overs cost 55 runs, demonstrated any discipline and control.
Makhaya Ntini
The features continued in the second Test when South Africa scored its first 300 runs in only 74 overs, as Herschelle Gibbs and Jacques Kallis in particular flayed the bowling. The South African scoring rate in the two Tests often exceeded four, and sometimes reached five runs an over, rates more associated with the limited-over version of the game than with Test cricket. In their three innings the South Africans scored 1,445 runs off 378 overs or an overall scoring rate of 3.8 runs an over.
This sad situation was clearly the result of the fact that the West Indian bowlers, including the normally reliable Vasbert Drakes, seldom showed any mastery of the basic disciplines of good line and length and bowling to the field set by the captain. There was hardly an over when they failed to bowl at least one bad delivery. Consequently, all the South African batsmen needed to do to score was to wait for that delivery.
This largely explains the relatively small number of maiden overs by the West Indians, only 37 in 377 overs or an average of one in ten overs. Two consecutive maiden overs were a rare occurrence. In these circumstances it was impossible to exert sustained pressure on the opposition that normally results in the fall of wickets.
Hopefully the West Indian bowlers have benefited from observing Shaun Pollock whose 92 overs included 25 maidens and cost only 197 runs, as he maintained his impressive career economy rate of only 2.2 runs an over.
The pathetic performance of the four specialist bowlers forced skipper Brian Lara to depend on part-time bowlers, Wavell Hinds and Ramnaresh Sarwan.
It was really sad to observe that as Gibbs and Kirsten approached their centuries, they did not have to contend with more challenging bowling than Hinds' uncomplicated medium pace and Sarwan's ordinary leg-spin.
In addition to being uneconomical, the West Indies bowling was distinguished by a lack of penetration.
This is clearly reflected in the number and the average cost of the wickets taken by all the bowlers: Hinds, 5 wickets for 184 runs (average 36.80); Collymore, 3 wickets for 137 runs (average 45.66); Drakes, 4 wickets for 226 runs (average 56.50); Sandford, 3 wickets for 170 runs (average 56.66); Sarwan, 2 wickets for 142 runs (average 71.00); Dillon, 3 wickets for 233 runs (average 77.66); and Edwards, 3 wickets for 277 runs (average 92.33). These averages would be excellent for batsmen, but they are atrocious for bowlers.
If this pattern continues during the remainder of the Test series, this will be by far the worst bowling performance by a West Indies team in the region's 75 years of Test cricket.
The lack of penetration of the region's bowlers was in striking contrast to the greater effectiveness of the leading South African bowlers, Ntini, Nel and Pollock. Ntini has already captured 17 wickets at an average of 16.82 runs each and Pollock, the least successful of the trio, 8 wickets at 24.62 runs each.
The inept bowling enabled the South Africans to achieve several new batting records. Their total of 658 in the last Test was their second highest score in the 272 Tests which they have played and their highest in 153 home Tests. Furthermore, Kallis and Kirsten broke a 75-year-old South African record for a fourth-wicket partnership in Tests with their stand of 249 in the same game.
The poor quality of the bowling was understandably a subject of severe criticism and ridicule by Caribbean and other commentators.
The Caribbean's leading cricket reporter and commentator, Tony Cozier, lamented the massacre of the bowling by Gibbs and Kallis thus: "The generosity of spirit was extended by the West Indies bowlers to Herschelle Gibbs and Jacques Kallis who clattered their abundant offerings of half-volleys and long hops to all part of the Kingsmead ground in a third-wicket partnership of 168 at the rate of five runs an over... No bowler was blameless... No one was able to complete an over with six balls on the same side of the wicket without a potential boundary."
Colin Croft, as usual, was more brutally candid in his comments after the second Test. According to him, "none of the West Indian bowlers seemed capable of as simple a task as delivering four, not six, as one over consists of, and one expects, but four deliveries along the same line of the stumps, the off-side. Merv Dillon, Vasbert Drakes, Fidel Edwards and worst of all, Adam Sandford could not sometimes hit another set of stumps if they had been in place! For international Test cricketers, they were as poor as could be imagined.
This type of bowling could not get any international team out twice, much less one that is so full of tremendous batsmen and a team that is so full of purpose... These West Indian bowlers could not get 20 wickets to win a Test match if their lives depended on it."
It was embarrassing to read the even more derisive comments of foreign journalists. Among them were the pungent remarks of Peter Robinson who wrote sarcastically in a Durban newspaper that "the West Indies attack might struggle to bowl out any decent Test side in 10 days, let alone five."
Skipper Brian Lara was eventually forced to acknowledge the blatant truth after the trouncing received in the second Test. He confessed then: "We've got a bowling problem. We're not bowling well. We've been consistently in trouble with the ball and that is a major problem."
He was, however, somewhat glib and over-optimistic when he added: We've got a bowling problem but that's a much easier problem to put together than if all our batters were failing. The bowlers realise what is going on and I think we're going to get that together.
It's definitely something we've got to sit down and talk about, converse about, and find a way to get things right."
Apart from the poor bowling and fielding, perhaps the saddest aspect of the West Indies' involvement in the current tour of South Africa was Lara's other observations in the wake of two defeats which every self-respecting West Indian considers extremely humiliating.
In an ill-advised attempt to salvage something from the wreckage of Caribbean cricket in South Africa, Lara "added insult to injury" when he stated that it was an achievement for the West Indies for the Tests to end in four days rather than in three, as happened in the past. It was also amazing and sad to hear the skipper describe his team's performance after the thrashing received in the first Test as "a great effort... the best Test match we've played away from home in a very long time... There are no negatives to come out of it. Yes we're 1-0 down, but we've played good cricket." The enthusiasm which Lara showed or tried to show in the wake of that crushing defeat is a classic example of the self-delusion which is one of the most disturbing features of current regional cricket at the highest level. How sad!