Sport

Improved performances needed in Carib Beer

WEST INDIES CRICKET is facing a real on-the-field crisis and there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel.

While the Brian Lara-led one-day international squad is in Australia feeling the heat in the VB one-day international series, the regional Carib Beer series has been throwing up a lot of weak performances.

The excitement has surely been there. The Barbados versus Jamaica match had a real nail-biting end on Sunday. Teams, however, have been finding it very difficult to get past 200 runs while some very ordinary bowlers are getting flattering figures.

Jamaica are well out in front in the standings with three outright wins and 36 points but coach Robert Haynes must be hoping for improved performances from the batsmen. In three matches Jamaica's scores have been 188 and 270 against the Leeward Islands at home; 244 and 136 versus the Windward Islands in St. Lucia and 193 and 116 against Barbados in Bridgetown.

Not good enough

In six innings the runaway leaders have been dismissed for less than 200 on four occasions! That's just not good enough for a championship team.

In the first three rounds of the competition only two batsmen have scored centuries and both came in the second round Leeward Islands versus Guyana game at Grove Park in Nevis. Former Leewards captain Stuart Williams got 142 and Guyana's Sewnarine Chattergoon hit 100 not out in a drawn match. Williams has announced that he will retire at the end of this season while Chattergoon has not really fulfilled his early promise.

The general consensus is that the batsmen lack application. Too many of them are going for the big shots and failing to play each ball on its merit. In one second-round match for example, Barbados' Dwayne Smith, who made a brilliant century for the West Indies against South Africa just over a year ago, hit 51 off 39 balls with three sixes and three fours as his side went down to Trinidad and Tobago. Barbados were chasing 257 for victory and the situation had called for careful batting but most of the Barbadian batsmen seemed to be in a hurry.

"We know that Barbados' players are attacking by nature and if we remained patient, they would come at us," Trinidad's captain, Daren Ganga, said after that match.

He added: "Most of their players love to score quickly. We stifled them, kind of drying up their scoring opportunities and once we did that we knew opportunities would have come our way. They played right into our hands."

Big problem

The big problem accompanying the lack of application by the batsmen is the fact that many ordinary bowlers are returning very good figures. The West Indies have not been able to produce a good spinner in many years but in regional competitions slow bowlers are coming away with many wickets.
When these same bowlers are selected to play for the West Indies they suffer humiliation at the Test level. Trinidad and Tobago's Rajindra Dhanraj, for example, would mesmerise the batsmen in the Caribbean with his legspin but when he was selected for the West Indies he found it difficult to get wickets.

The problem has been with us for a long time and will not be solved easily.

The current Carib Beer competition with its ten rounds may help, in the long run, to produce better players but this will only come about if the best cricketers in the region ­ Lara, Chris Gayle, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Shivnarine Chanderpaul and company - are available for the competition and the young, promising players can rub shoulders with and learn from them.