Why lament the Windies when the sun is still shining on them?
Mankind continues to dwell in the past. While as humans ever so conscious of the vitality that ‘today’ holds, we keep on sermonizing about how we should forget events of the past and focus on the present moment. But, in reality, we hardly practice what we preach. As lovers of one of the most appetizing modern day sports, we literally do eat, sleep, walk, communicate about and linger over cricket. More so, if you are in India.
We seem to possess this outright will to decorate cricketers from the world over with garlands of huge respect when we take a liking to them. And yet, any moment where someone’s performance is little off colour and not perhaps up to the desires of our cricket greedy palette, within seconds we run the personality down.
We admire Australians for their valour although we hate their ill mannerisms that are not an uncommon sight if you are glued to a contest starring the Kangaroos. We always think of Sri Lanka as this promising opposition that can dethrone any side in world cricket on their given day. Although we love to tag South Africans as the ‘chokers’ of the game, deep within our senses we know they are perhaps the hardest team to beat universally. In India, we regard Kiwis as the real underdogs but sadly reserve our worst humiliation for the men from the Caribbean. The West Indians, are together put to the sword each time a cricket fan decides to quote his ‘expert opinion’ on the game.
West Indies deserve more admiration
Sadly, this phenomenon is not much different when it comes to the admirers of the game from other parts of the world. Forever regarded as the most legendary ‘have been’s ‘of the game, the reputation of West Indies in cricket has for over much of the last two decades dwindled from being a great super force of vibrant talent to being an underperforming bunch of cricketers who love the game and finally, in its shabbiest form, described as lads who seem to have lost touch in a game that peaked with their past glories. One notices, that such persistent criticism, even though it might be delivered in a somewhat haste seems to actually serve no purpose. What on earth is the cricket lover ever going to attain by lamenting this one side and its players all the time?
So what if Shivnarine Chanderpaul’s batting stance is an oddity to graceful and breathtaking strokes that we are familiarised to associate with a Ponting, Kallis or Dravid? His record is just as phenomenal as theirs. Just how much damage has Christopher Henry Gayle done to shaming world cricket if his footwork is slightly off colour in most of the innings that the Jamaican plays? So what if there has never been a consistent opening pair from the West Indies for close to a decade now? And, what on earth is lacking if none of the pacers from the present line of the West Indies bowling attack have an overall aggregate of over 300 wickets in either form of the game? Why do we treat West Indians with such disdain and throw dirt at their performances if not reducing them to a state of perpetual butchery?
In reality, things in the Caribbean are brighter than before! While the tone of an average cricket lover describing the once mighty West Indies may be harsh and severe to the extent of looking down on the team with its collective talent, let us not forget that things aren’t exactly murky and dark as painted by popular perception. Why is everyone so willing to suffocate Darren Bravo under the heavy-duty comparison with batting legend Brian Lara? Why is just a slight dip in form of elder brother Dwayne seen forever as a sign that he is past his best?
Serving criticism is never a problem unless it lacks a fundamental base for reasoning. Some of us may have failed at certain subjects in school once but if a tag of permanent failure is attached to us despite our promising talent in the offing, then wouldn’t that be too harsh? Similar scenario seems to be happening to the West Indies! For a team that had lifted the Champions Trophy way back in 2004 and couldn’t manage to replicate similar glories from thereon, still not everything has fallen apart for West Indies. There is still hope and vast gamut of talent emanating from the forever peppy and upbeat Island nation.
The World T20 in 2012
To the utter surprise of everyone watching the World T20 tournament in Sri Lanka, in 2012 - it was the West Indies that eventually lifted the trophy. Coming into a tournament with a reputation that always favoured their hard hitting batsmen, Ravi Rampaul and Sunil Narine’s surprising success took the world by storm. Though people never really regarded their bowling triumphs as being that pertinent clog that begun to turn the wheel of fortune toward the Windies’ favour, the duo went about doing their job silently.
Sammy suddenly out of nowhere emerged as a ferocious power hitter who wouldn’t waste a second to place a cricket ball into the stands or even outside the ground once you had bowled poorly to him. He was as casual fas competitive and his rise to some newfound glories as the West Indian captain, has spirited quite a few triumphs from thereon. Never angry and rarely operating with a fussy expression, he chears his lads when their shoulders droop and since his inception as the captain, has lead remarkably from the front.
A bowler as talented as Kemar Roach cannot be ignored for long. Presently, he is bowling as fine as he ever did and with Denesh Ramdin taking over the charge of test leadership, not only is Sammy given the necessary rest but a new dawn of peaceful leadership seems to be on the horizon with the advent of Ramdin and his gritty batting. For a team whose batsmen hardly ever interacted during the end of an over or at the commencement of one, this young side now rallies around each other for support and motivation.
In the days of Hooper, Atherton and the Prince of Trinidad what prevailed was never any on the pitch communication, but shear admiration from the other end. Something was lacking. It was the words of advice and caution, which one sees more prominently in the existing side.
Gayle continues to knock batting records off the shelf. A recent demonstration of his heroics was during his explosive display of power - hitting versus the touring Kiwis in June wherein, he became only the second West Indian batsman to score the second fastest fifty in Test cricket. The one surprising name even ahead of him is that of off spinner Shane Shillingford. Gayle’s calm complements the powerhitting, often dethroning calculative planning done at the opposition’s end and it is this facet that has cultivated his genius and made him a modern day great. His other partner in destruction, Keiron Pollard, a batsman whom one would regard as only a T20 specialist, is perhaps the only cricketer out there who can fashion the longest six in the fashion of a golf swing. You may be an express pacer or a sharp turner or even gifted with the one that turns the other way round but chances are, at the slightest delivery of a short ball, the ball will spring back over your head resulting from a muscular pull or drive. The factor of destruction being Polly. He may smile at you at times or display nasty agression, but more often than not, he ensures that the fielders keep busy at mostly collecting the ball from behind the boundary. The dynamic duo were big reasons for Windies’ 2012 T20 triumph. While Gayle launched his firepower all throughout, Pollard delivered the goods versus the crucial game against the Aussies.