Col­in Croft

On both oc­ca­sions I was re­al­ly fright­ened, I was in an air­plane, but the B-747 Jum­bo's were in ex­cel­lent shape. I was just very con­cerned about pos­si­bil­i­ties, my fear based on two films seen while fly­ing in­ter-con­ti­nen­tal­ly. That fear is re­turn­ing, but for our crick­et. It has been ac­knowl­edged that the Caribbean is ide­al for es­pe­cial­ly the short­est form of the game, T-20, but things that con­tin­ue to hap­pen in our back-yard con­cern me great­ly, and should wor­ry you too, if you still en­joy and love West In­dies crick­et. Both films had the same theme: "If you put very im­por­tant, but dan­ger­ous and volatile sit­u­a­tions, in the hands of in-ef­fi­cient op­er­a­tors, there is a very good pos­si­bil­i­ty that all could be de­stroyed." In some ways, our crick­et is near­ly on the same lev­el.

My movie ex­pe­ri­ences

"The Chi­na Syn­drome" (1979), starred a youth­ful Michael Dou­glas and Jane Fon­da. Ar­ro­gance and ig­no­rance near­ly drove the ex­posed core of a nu­clear pow­er plant straight through the earth's mid­dle, from the USA to Chi­na." "(For ge­og­ra­phy buffs, the op­po­site side of the earth, from the USA, is the In­di­an Ocean). The irony of this is that this film opened two weeks be­fore the re­al-life hor­ror sit­u­a­tion at 'Three Mile Is­land', in the USA." "War Games", (1983), starred Math­ew Broth­er­ick and Al­ly Sheedy. A su­per-com­put­er, WOPR (War Op­er­a­tions Plan Re­sponse), which, hav­ing been ac­tu­at­ed by hu­man er­rors, be­lieved that a game–Glob­al Ther­mo-Nu­clear War–was re­al, with the ob­vi­ous con­se­quences; re­al So­vi­ets and re­al Amer­i­cans com­ing very close to elim­i­nat­ing all alive.

Are West In­dies help­ing its self

The world might need West In­dies crick­et, but does West In­dies crick­et ac­tu­al­ly help it­self? The en­ti­ty re­cent­ly claimed that it is restart­ing and rein­vent­ing its ex­is­tence as a great crick­et­ing na­tion. If that is so, then they have to start over yet still, since this last week con­tained some un­ac­cept­ably sham­bol­ic pieces. It must be ex­plained, not to me, but to the coun­tries con­cerned, as to why play­ers rep­re­sent­ing Guyana, Wind­ward Is­lands, Lee­ward Is­lands, Bar­ba­dos and Ja­maica, had to sleep on the floors of their ho­tels, there be­ing no rooms, or beds, for some of them to oc­cu­py. This was as mas­sive an in­sult to our re­gion­al crick­eters as has ever hap­pened–ex­treme­ly shame­ful–What the hell is wrong with this pic­ture? Does no one re­al­ly plan?

The blame game stars again

Which smart per­sons made this de­ci­sion to hold the T&T round of our re­gion­al four-day com­pe­ti­tion on the week­end im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter Car­ni­val? when, on that same crick­et week­end, the mega-star Be­y­once was per­form­ing here. Sure­ly, the play­ers could have stayed in Guyana a few more days, or flip sched­ules. A five-year-old would have told them that there would be no rooms avail­able any­where for the 100 + crick­et per­son­nel, as ho­tel rooms are al­ways at a pre­mi­um in T&T. Even the "va­grants' bench­es" around the Queens Park Sa­van­nah were sold out last week­end. Apolo­gies were made, but they were use­less. The T&T Crick­et Board (TTCB) blames the West In­dies Crick­et Board; the WICB blames the TTCB. Mad­ness! This too falls in­to that pur­ga­to­ry of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, where every­one hides be­hind every­one else.

Does this not re­mind you of the 1994 WICB vs Ja­maica Crick­et Board fi­as­co of the first ever aban­doned Test, or the Test aban­doned last year, when nei­ther the WICB nor the Lee­ward Is­lands Crick­et As­so­ci­a­tion took the blame for the garbage at the Sir Vi­vian Richards Sta­di­um, in An­tigua & Bar­bu­da. The per­son­nel may have changed in the rul­ing bod­ies, but noth­ing has changed at all, do they know their purview?

No VIP treat­ment for Zim­bab­we

So, the Zim­bab­weans ar­rived in T&T last Tues­day evening, af­ter fly­ing for over 30 hours. No one of any crick­et­ing im­por­tance, no top of­fi­cial of ei­ther the WICB or the T&TCB, not any Pres­i­dent or even Vice-Pres­i­dent, was there to meet them. The best that the T&TCB could do was to have the sec­re­tary meet our es­teemed vis­i­tors. Are these play­ers and coach­es not VIP's too, crick­et­ing am­bas­sadors rep­re­sent­ing over 12 mil­lion peo­ple? We are not that rude, are we? As the XV that we se­lect, and are re­spect­ed when they tour, re­gard­less of the crick­et they play, the Zim­bab­weans al­so de­serve our re­spect too. Say what you may about Pe­ter Chin­go­ka, the Zim­bab­we crick­et ad­min­is­tra­tor. Had the West In­dies been vis­it­ing Zim­bab­we, he would have been first to the air­port.

Un­less there was some fam­i­ly emer­gency, at least the pres­i­dent of the TTCB should have greet­ed our vis­i­tors on ar­rival. Yet, out of this sham­bles, our crick­et will KBO, as Sir Win­ston Churchill, who played many a war game, sug­gest­ed in WWII "Keep Bug­ger­ing On." The West In­dies had bet­ter beat the Zims, as much de­pends on how our team shapes up in this se­ries and the next. Gib­son's first test

With the new Head Coach, Ot­tis Gib­son, in po­si­tion. This is sup­posed to be a new start. Re­al­ly. Gib­son is philo­soph­i­cal: "This is a mas­sive job, but al­so a love­ly chal­lenge to have, and one that I am look­ing for­ward to." "For all of the time that I have been in coach­ing, I sup­pose that I was prepar­ing my­self for such an op­por­tu­ni­ty and chal­lenge. Things may not have gone well re­cent­ly with the West In­dies, but I have great op­ti­mism, as I have charge of a very tal­ent­ed bunch of crick­eters."

Mean­while, Zim­bab­we is led by two re­al-time war­riors, two of their best crick­eters ever. Heath Streak, the bowl­ing coach, and David Houghton, the bat­ting con­sul­tant, both for­mer cap­tains, are he­roes in Zim­bab­we crick­et wars and folk­lore. Streak played in 65 Tests, as a fast bowl­ing all-rounder, good enough to have near­ly 2000 Test runs, one Test cen­tu­ry and 11 fifties, to go with his 216 Test wick­ets, the high­est tak­en by a Zim­bab­wean. Many a game was turned in Zims' favour on the de­ter­mi­na­tion and mas­sive whole-heart­ed­ness of "Streaky." Says Streak: "I am very ex­cit­ed to be work­ing again with the Zim­bab­we crick­eters. This is a very im­por­tant phase for us, as this is the start of our ef­fort for re-en­try in­to Test crick­et, re­al­is­ti­cal­ly, about 18 months from now." "We have come to the Caribbean with an ob­jec­tive to win this se­ries and we want the rest of the world to start tak­ing us very se­ri­ous­ly in­deed again. We have an amaz­ing set of abil­i­ty and po­ten­tial in our squad."

Houghton played on­ly 22 Tests, but av­er­aged over 43 runs per in­nings, up with the best. He made his first Test hun­dred, of four; Zim­bab­we's first; in their first Test ever, as their first cap­tain, against In­dia. His high­est Test score was 266, against Sri Lan­ka.

"I am try­ing to help Zim­bab­we's crick­et in all de­part­ments, es­pe­cial­ly with my ex­pe­ri­ences in the Eng­lish coun­ty scene." "To help in this tran­si­tion is fan­tas­tic. I hope that our play­ers re­alise that this is a se­ri­ous busi­ness trip. I ex­pect us to win." "Our crick­eters are young, but we have some re­al qual­i­ty," quipped Houghton." That is as maybe, but, if the West In­dies does not beat Zim­bab­we, then, as was the fi­nal thought in "War Games", 'the on­ly win­ning move (would be) not to play. En­joy!