Anand Ram­per­sad

Con­grat­u­la­tions to De­nesh Ramdin on be­ing named the 35th test cap­tain of the West In­dies since its first test match in 1928. It is not sur­pris­ing that the West In­dies Board has an­nounced the change giv­en the re­cent poor per­for­mances of the West In­dies in its last two test se­ries away to In­dia (2-0) and then New Zealand (2-0).

Ramdin's as­cen­dan­cy to the cap­tain­cy is not by de­fault. He was ear­marked for the po­si­tion as a youth play­er and have served as West In­dies vice-cap­tain on more than one oc­ca­sion. He has cap­tained the West In­dies in three ODIs and a T20. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, he has ex­pe­ri­ence from cap­tain­ing the T&T se­nior team on 37 oc­ca­sions with 21 wins.

As Ramdin en­ters a new chap­ter in his crick­et­ing life, he has to recog­nise an ho­n­our has been con­ferred up­on him to lead one of the most im­por­tant in­sti­tu­tions in the Caribbean. The West In­dies crick­et team and the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies are prob­a­bly the on­ly two in­sti­tu­tions in the re­gion that have con­sis­tent­ly brought Caribbean peo­ple to­geth­er. As such he has to take the op­por­tu­ni­ty with both hands and demon­strate to him­self, the West In­dies team and the re­gion that he de­serves the po­si­tion. He has to ac­cept the fact that be­ing re­gion­al cap­tain is very de­mand­ing and this be­comes even more ev­i­dent with the team tot­ter­ing in 8th po­si­tion in the ICC rank­ings on­ly ahead of Zim­bab­we and Bangladesh. Every­one ex­pects a quick re­ver­sal of the cur­rent ad­ver­si­ty which has its gen­e­sis 18 years ago when the West In­dies sur­ren­dered the Sir Frank Wor­rell Tro­phy in 1996, 3-2 to Mark Tay­lor's Aus­tralian team in the Caribbean.

As much as Ramdin has ex­pe­ri­ence as cap­tain of T&T, cap­tain­ing the West In­dies will present greater chal­lenges as the team is drawn from many na­tion­al­i­ties and cul­tures as well as the fact that in­su­lar­i­ty or the claims of it have al­ways taint­ed the re­gion­al game es­pe­cial­ly when the team is not do­ing well. There­fore, it will be wise of Ramdin to have a few con­ver­sa­tions with per­sons of the ilk of Clive Lloyd and Sir Vi­vian Richards who led the West In­dies in the heights of its glo­ry days when win­ning was a habit. The great West In­di­an play­ers do have a role to play in the re­de­vel­op­ment of our style of play.

When­ev­er some­one is ap­point­ed cap­tain, it means that the se­lec­tors have con­fi­dence that the per­son has the abil­i­ty to lead a group of tal­ent­ed and skill­ful play­ers both in­di­vid­u­al­ly and col­lec­tive­ly to per­form at their op­ti­mum po­ten­tial. There­fore, every leader has to have their own phi­los­o­phy and lead­er­ship style which has to be com­mu­ni­cat­ed clear­ly to the play­ers so they will know what is ex­pect­ed of them. The play­ers have to feel at ease and en­joy what they do. The leader has to demon­strate ef­fec­tive hu­man re­source man­age­ment skills. Noth­ing is nec­es­sar­i­ly nat­ur­al about lead­er­ship.

Ramdin has to take a page from some of his con­tem­po­raries such as Michael Clarke and Al­is­tair Cook, who have scored tons of runs since as­sum­ing the cap­tain­cy of their re­spec­tive coun­tries. Af­ter 56 test match­es, 2235 runs at an av­er­age of 27.25 with 4 cen­turies and 11 50's, there is room for im­prove­ment which if achieved would not on­ly re­dound to the team but al­so put him along­side the most suc­cess­ful West In­dies wick­et­keep­er bats­men and test cap­tain.

Start­ing off his test cap­tain­cy against 6th ranked New Zealand in the West In­dies may be ben­e­fi­cial to get­ting his feet wet in the job. How­ev­er, New Zealand should not be tak­en light­ly as their re­cent record sug­gest. The se­ries should be a good test­ing start of Ramdin's cap­tain­cy. An easy se­ries against Zim­bab­we or Bangladesh would not have been a good gauge.

As fo­cus is on Ramdin, it is easy to for­get his pre­de­ces­sor, Dar­ren Sam­my and his tenure as cap­tain. His­to­ry will not nec­es­sar­i­ly re­mem­ber him as a suc­cess­ful cap­tain, but there is no deny­ing that when­ev­er Sam­my walked on­to the field of play he gave 150 per cent, one on­ly has to be re­mind­ed of his ef­fort against Aus­tralia in the re­cent T20 World Cup in Bangladesh. Sam­my gave his best with­in his lim­i­ta­tions and al­though he has re­tired from test crick­et, he has a lot to of­fer in the short­est ver­sion of the game, T20 for which he is cap­tain.

It is hoped that the change in lead­er­ship will spark an over­all resur­gence in the for­tunes of the West In­dies test team to pe­ri­od of world dom­i­nance. Time will tell if its wish­ful think­ing, a dream or a pos­si­ble re­al­i­ty.

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