West Indies now in the land of spin

Tony Becca, ON THE BOUNDARY


The West Indies flew out of Dhaka to Delhi on Wednesday after winning one of two Test matches, with rain destroying the other, and everybody, from the players themselves, the captain and the coach to the former maestro, great captain, good batsman, and brilliant fielder, Clive Lloyd, is full of praise for their exploits.

In winning the Test match, and thus the series, the West Indies players, to their credit, did reasonably well, but not well enough for anyone, not even the understandably satisfied captain Darren Sammy, to sound the alarm or for Lloyd to bring out the band.

After losing the one Twenty20 match and winning two of the three one-day internationals, after the West Indies were dismissed for a pathetic 61 in the third, the one they lost, it must be remembered that Kraigg Brathwaite played only one good innings in two Test matches, Kieran Powell one in one Test match, Kirk Edwards two in two Test matches, Darren Bravo one in two Test matches, and Fidel Edwards and Devendra Bishoo bowled well in one innings, each in two Test matches to hand the West Indies their first win overseas in eight years.

Although praise must be showered on Edwards for stroking his second century in only three Test matches, on Bravo for finally notching his maiden century in a fine innings of 195, and if not so much on Fidel Edwards for taking five wickets in an innings, certainly on spinner Bishoo for picking up his first five-for, it must be remembered that they were performances against Bangladesh, the weakest team in Test cricket.

The Bangladeshi batsmen, except for the gifted but reckless Tamim Iqbal and the careful Mushfiqur Rahim, were easy pickings for good bowlers; their bowlers, except for left-arm spinner Elias Sunny, who took five wickets in one innings of the first Test and who did not play in the second Test, were no match for any good batsman, and their fielding was way below expectation.

world ranking

In fact, the West Indies were lucky: had they lost to Bangladesh, the West Indies would have to take the proverbial slow boat, not home, but to China.

The real test comes in India where they take on the home team in three Test matches and five one-day internationals, with the first Test match scheduled to have started last night (local time) in Delhi.

For a start, India, up to a few months ago, were the number-one team in the world of Test cricket until they fell, meekly, before England in England.

The West Indies, however, will find that India recently beat England 5-0 at home, and that, more important, a batting line-up of Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman, Virat Kohli or Yuvraj Singh, and Mahendra Singh Dhoni is better, by far, than that which included Iqbal, Imrul Kayes, Shahriar Nafees, Rahim, and company.

They will also find that India's bowling, although it will be without pacers Zaheer Khan, Shanthaku-maran Sreesanth, and Praveen Kumar, will boast fast bowlers Ishant Sharma and newcomers Varun Aaron and Umesh Yadav, left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha and newcomers, right-arm leg-break/googly bowler Rahul Sharma and mystery off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin.

It will be a good and testing attack.

It will be India's best batsmen on their own pitches against the likes of fast bowlers Fidel Edwards, Kemar Roach, and Ravi Rampaul, as well as leg-spinner Bishoo, and apart from Ishant Sharma and Ojha, India will be rolling out, on their own pitches, not only Aaron and Yadav, the bowlers they hope will form their future fast bowling greats, but also Ashwin and Rahul Sharma, the bowlers they are banking on to torment the batsmen of the world with their spin.

In days gone by, West Indian batsmen, run-getters like Everton Weekes, Gary Sobers, Rohan Kanhai, Alvin Kallicharran, Viv Richards, Clive Lloyd, Richie Richardson, Brian Lara, have been to India and treated not only a fast bowler like Ramakant Desai with disdain but also their famous spin bowlers, champions like Vinoo Mankad and Subhash Gupte, Erapali Prasanna, Srinas Venkataraghavan, Bhagwat Chandrasekhar, and Bishen Bedi, and Anil Kumble.

West Indies bowlers, namely, speedsters like Wes Hall and Roy Gilchrist, Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, and Malcolm Marshall, Courtney Walsh and Curtly Ambrose sent their batsmen running for cover.

cool as a cucumber

In 1958-59, it is reported that the late Berry Sarbadhikary, working then on Indian radio as a commentator, and with Gilchrist bowling to Narendra Tamhane in a Test match, once said: "And in comes Gilchrist, the fastest bowler in all the world, to Tamhane, Tamhane plays forward, and he is bowled, neck and crop."

In a subsequent Test match, Desai was bowling to Kanhai and Sarbadhikary, as cool as a cucumber, said, so it is reported: "In comes Desai, the fastest bowler in all India, to Kanhai, and Kanhai plays forward, easily, killing the spin."

The Indian fast bowlers these days are faster, much faster, than Desai was at his best, and all things considered, this series will be a test of the real strength of West Indies cricket at this point. These West Indies cricketers, except for Shivnarine Chanderpaul, are certainly not near as good as most of those of yesterday, and those that promise to be as good are not yet as developed as they should be.

The West Indies are not expected to win, but on this their 10th tour of India, with the record reading 14 victories for West Indies, seven for India, and 19 draws, if the West Indies can give a good account of themselves and compete satisfactorily, even if they lose, they will win, remembering that after starting out in 1948-49 with five victories in a row in all contests, at home and abroad, the West Indies have lost the last three, at home and abroad.

It would be good, for example, if a few of the youngsters, probably Darren Bravo and Kirk Edwards, probably Fidel Edwards or Kemar Roach, return home with performances that bring back memories of batsmen like Kanhai and Richards, and of fast bowlers like Hall and Roberts on their first tour of the subcontinent.

Like so many others, they all went to India as promising youngsters and returned to lead the West Indies to two great deeds, one that took them to the top of world cricket in 1965, and one, unquestionably and undeniably so, from 1976 to 1995.