JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Tuesday, July 22, 2025

Sporti­fi­ca­tion

Ramdin must lead from front

by

20140511

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.

?


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored