I have been following West Indies cricket for more than 20 years now, they infact are my favorites. From the age of 10 when I was barely 3ft tall, I have been trying to copy and bowl like Curtly Ambrose (I was pretty fast in my earlier days and I mean express pace, not chummi fast!). Everyone knows the team has gone down, cricket is in tatters etc etc but this last series against NZ sums it up, I haven't seen more things wrong about a team since ...i cant even think of an example!
1) Batting coach is Stuart Williams - are you kidding me? On one side you have the great Ambrose as the bowling consultant and then you have Williams as the batting one? seriously? The guy could barely bat himself, averages in poor numbers and was at best tier-2 opener. Why have him? Where are Hooper, Jimmy Adams, Sherwin Campbell (even he would be better than Williams)? I am assuming Lara has said "fkk off" to these guy already else he is an obvious choice. I think the logic that you don't necessarily have to be great player yourself to be a great coach might work for the Head Coach position (Otis Gibson in this case) but it definitely DOES NOT work for the specialist position consultants. Imagine Sidhu being the fielding coach of India?
2) The captain - Ramdin. Why is he the captain? For lack of any other senior players? Where is DJ Bravo (the ODI captain)? Ramdin till last year was in pathetic batting form and himself not sure of his position in the side, now we have him as a permanent fixture. Silly - and to top it, he himself is not sure whether he can handle it. Extremely defensive and supremely bad team selection
3) Suniel Narine - This was the height of ullu ka pathapan that selectors did. He played the IPL final and was late by 1 day in reaching back, he missed the deadline. So he was told he will be omitted for the full test series. Why? What part of IPL schedule did WI selectors not know? IPL is already approved by various boards, the schedules are public knowledge, Kolkatta reaching final was public news, and more importantly didn't just happen out of the blue - everyone could see they are in top 4, won the 1st qualifier so are in finals. Even if he did get omitted for the 1st test, what is the point of omitting him for all 3?
4) Shillingford - He needs to go and practice a new variation, his doosra is banned and frankly he sucks at best! His inclusion in last test single handedly defeated WI. Instead of him, there should have been a batsman and NO i don't want to see Blackwood. Bring back DJ Bravo, Sarwan etc. Dink out Edwards, Gayle, Shillingford.
Bowling is actually looking good after a while, they need to get Fido Edwards also back fit and these 3 : Roach, Taylor and Edwards can actually do well together with Narine and Benn.
Ideal Test team should look like this -
Braithwaite, Blackwood, Darren Bravo, Sarwan, Chanderpaul, DJ Bravo, Ramdin, Narine, Roach, Taylor, Edwards
Also Chanderpaul is almost on his way out, so there is a huge hole waiting to be exposed there - Gayle should be brought down the order (same issue as Sehwag i think, he has no technique at the top!)
I really hope to see a Test Match in Jamaica one day and more importantly WI will win that day and not get thrashed!
MA
1) Batting coach is Stuart Williams - are you kidding me? On one side you have the great Ambrose as the bowling consultant and then you have Williams as the batting one? seriously? The guy could barely bat himself, averages in poor numbers and was at best tier-2 opener. Why have him? Where are Hooper, Jimmy Adams, Sherwin Campbell (even he would be better than Williams)? I am assuming Lara has said "fkk off" to these guy already else he is an obvious choice. I think the logic that you don't necessarily have to be great player yourself to be a great coach might work for the Head Coach position (Otis Gibson in this case) but it definitely DOES NOT work for the specialist position consultants. Imagine Sidhu being the fielding coach of India?
2) The captain - Ramdin. Why is he the captain? For lack of any other senior players? Where is DJ Bravo (the ODI captain)? Ramdin till last year was in pathetic batting form and himself not sure of his position in the side, now we have him as a permanent fixture. Silly - and to top it, he himself is not sure whether he can handle it. Extremely defensive and supremely bad team selection
3) Suniel Narine - This was the height of ullu ka pathapan that selectors did. He played the IPL final and was late by 1 day in reaching back, he missed the deadline. So he was told he will be omitted for the full test series. Why? What part of IPL schedule did WI selectors not know? IPL is already approved by various boards, the schedules are public knowledge, Kolkatta reaching final was public news, and more importantly didn't just happen out of the blue - everyone could see they are in top 4, won the 1st qualifier so are in finals. Even if he did get omitted for the 1st test, what is the point of omitting him for all 3?
4) Shillingford - He needs to go and practice a new variation, his doosra is banned and frankly he sucks at best! His inclusion in last test single handedly defeated WI. Instead of him, there should have been a batsman and NO i don't want to see Blackwood. Bring back DJ Bravo, Sarwan etc. Dink out Edwards, Gayle, Shillingford.
Bowling is actually looking good after a while, they need to get Fido Edwards also back fit and these 3 : Roach, Taylor and Edwards can actually do well together with Narine and Benn.
Ideal Test team should look like this -
Braithwaite, Blackwood, Darren Bravo, Sarwan, Chanderpaul, DJ Bravo, Ramdin, Narine, Roach, Taylor, Edwards
Also Chanderpaul is almost on his way out, so there is a huge hole waiting to be exposed there - Gayle should be brought down the order (same issue as Sehwag i think, he has no technique at the top!)
I really hope to see a Test Match in Jamaica one day and more importantly WI will win that day and not get thrashed!
MA
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