From what we witnessed in the Test series against England, it’s easy to conclude that our young players cannot match a quality team such as England and in their conditions.
Our batsmen generally do not have the technique, temperament, ability and experience of the English players. There is much that is positive, which can be said of our bowlers, but having to constantly fight against high totals and the English batsmen intent on doing the job for their country, our bowlers were often overwhelmed.
England captain Ben Stokes, still nursing the bruising championship punishment he received from Carlos “Remember that name” Braithwaite at the end of the series and in a position to repay the 6666 humiliation he received, embarked on revenge.
He pulled, drove, and hooked almost every ball bowled at him with a kind of arrogant dismissiveness similar to that he received in that fateful 2016 T20 World Cup final.
Stokes took over opening the innings with the intention to slaughter our bowlers and disgrace our team. Stokes wanted to inflict a memorable beating on the West Indies and redeem himself from the 6666 chapter in his career. Our dispirited bowlers with only 82 runs to defend were helpless to prevent or even mitigate the assault.
It was gladiatorial and to be admired. Hopefully, the red marks and the whelps and wales left by Stokes on the backs of our players will turn into scars that they cannot ignore and will want to themselves avenge. So too should the marks be imprinted on the minds of our cricket administrators and every West Indian worthy of being identified as a supporter.
Stokes did us a favour: your cricket and cricketers are not up to Test class, he said to anyone wishing to listen. In response, we must recognise that we have not been able to attract the best talents to come out of the West Indies in the last ten years to represent our cricketing nation at the Test level; we have not been able to create the infrastructure for quality players and teams to emerge; to have now agreed on establishing a permanent regional academy 25 years after other nations have done so is shameful.
The slightest glance at the English batsmen and bowlers is to realise they have been schooled not only in technique but into an attitude of aggression as different from the past; they and others have looked at and learnt from the harsh lessons that were inflicted on them during the West Indian dynasty. What are the history lessons we need to learn from?
Frank Worrell sought to eliminate, at least, quieten that impulse of “small islandness” that afflicts West Indians in almost all aspects of life, surely in our politics and stubbornness to recognise the value in cooperation as opposed to self-immolating war; it’s not too much different from “little black boys” killing each other over crumbs. Indeed, that is the culture being reported upon.
Gary Sobers demonstrated the glory of greatness and how to reduce the opposition to mediocrity. Clive Lloyd found out through punishment (more severe than that inflicted by Stokes) that individual talent alone is worth little. He came to understand how individual talents are to be used and combined with a relentless ruthlessness until the enemy was forced to submit.
Our administrators and all of us too, as West Indians, believe that demon fast bowlers and destructive batsmen will emerge every Monday morning with the swagger of Viv Richards and the charm of Lawrence Rowe. We must begin to understand and accept that it doh happen so. We have to first understand what is required, ie., the circumstances and environment that need to be created for the crop to grow. We are now seeking hastily to establish a permanent academy, 25 years too late to look after technique and the capacity for shot-making and to rear demon fast bowlers and quality spinners.
Critically, I hope heavy emphasis will be placed on cultivating the minds and the mental strength needed in our players to oppose the best cricket teams in all formats. Our administrators have had technical plans and programmes put before them going back a couple of decades; what is going to happen to whatever ideas came out of the highly-touted conference held here in Chaguaramas?
The best West Indian batting talents of this period, Shai Hope, Nicholas Pooran, Sherfane Rutherford (hopefully, Shimron Hetmyer can recreate himself), and a couple of others need to be persuaded to lend those talents to a West Indian revival; they will benefit from it as playing the long game will make them even more formidable T20 warriors.
I have laboured the point for a couple of decades that the minds and mind-game of our players remain unchallenged, unengaged. I am not against any young player seeking to secure himself and his family’s future through franchise cricket. The responsibility is for Cricket West Indies to create ways and means to engage their interest, to instill that West Indian sense of self in them, and to inject pride of achievement in the young.
Tony Rakhal-Fraser is a freelance journalist, former reporter/current affairs programme host and News Director at TTT, programme producer/current affairs director at Radio Trinidad, correspondent for the BBC Caribbean Service and the Associated Press, graduate of UWI, CARIMAC, Mona, and St Augustine- Institute of International Relations.
