Who will win the series, WI or Bangladesh?

Tony Becca, Contributor

Once upon a time whenever the West Indies played Bangladesh, it was a one-sided match-up. In fact, there was no doubt as to who the winners would be, neither, for that matter, the margin of victory. Today, however, as the West Indies prepare to take on Bangladesh in a series of one Twenty20 match, three one-day internationals, and two Test matches, it is not so, far from it.

Believe it or not, this time no one knows who is going to win.

Richie Richardson, the celebrated former captain and current manager of the West Indies team, said on arrival in Dhaka, for all to hear, that "Bangladesh can be a tough side especially playing at home in favourable conditions. They are a force to be reckoned with and we have some good players in our team, but we believe we can beat them."

Richardson went on: "We expect a very competitive tour here in Bangladesh. We don't expect it to be easy, but we know we have the players with the skill to come here and be successful and beat Bangladesh. We are ready for whatever combinations we come up against, be it spin, or seam, or pace."

Speaking as if he were in England, Australia or South Africa and not in lowly Bangladesh, in a country which has won only three while losing 60 of their 69 Test matches, in a country where Jermaine Lawson once took six wickets for a mere three runs while destroying them for 87, against a team which Ramnaresh Sarwan once danced to 261 not out, and against a team which recently collapsed for 58 runs, Richardson, the manager of the former world champions, also said that that performance, dismissing Bangladesh, the weakest team in Test cricket, for 58, was a huge boost to the West Indies team.

"We played exceptionally well and that is the way we would like to play every game. We will draw on performances like that as we look to quickly get acclimatised to the foreign conditions."

Was Richardson being diplomatic when he reeled off those words to journalists at Dhaka airport?

I do not know. What I do know is that if Richardson was not being diplomatic, and if Bangladesh do beat the West Indies, then this West Indies team will go down in history as the weakest West Indies team since the West Indies joined the Test arena in 1928.

The truth is that maybe Richardson is correct. Maybe, like everyone else, he does not know which team will win, and instead of making a mistake, instead of calling it wrong, he prefers not to commit himself.

The West Indies team, however, has some players of talent in it and a few players of ability.

With the ever-reliable Shivnarine Chanderpaul and the mercurial Marlon Samuels, the gifted Adrian Barath and Darren Bravo, plus fast bowlers Kirk Edwards, Kemar Roach, and Ravi Rampaul, and also spin bowler Devendra Bishoo to call on, the West Indies should be simply too good for Bangladesh, whether they are playing at home in their own conditions or in the West Indies.

Close contest

Unlike years ago, one thing is sure. With the West Indies not half as good as years gone by, it should be a close contest between two fairly matched teams, between the pace of the West Indies and the spin of Bangladesh.

Despite their rich and glorious history which saw them rising to be the undisputed champions of the world, and for a long time at that, the West Indies, the team which produced batsmen the calibre of George Headley, Frank Worrell, Everton Weekes, and Clyde Walcott, Garry Sobers, Rohan Kanhai, Lawrence Rowe, Alvin Kallicharran, Vivian Richards, Gordon Greenidge, Brian Lara, spin bowlers as good as Sonny Ramadhin, Alfred Valentine, and Lance Gibbs, fast bowlers such as Learie Constantine, Herman Griffith, Manny Martindale, Wes Hall, Charlie Griffith, Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, Courtney Walsh, and Curtley Ambrose, wicketkeepers like Jackie Hendriks and Jeffrey Dujon, the team which produced captains like Worrell, Sobers, Kanhai, Lloyd, and Richards, have fallen on hard times.

The West Indies have fallen so far, so hard, that the last great batsmen, the last great players they have produced have been Lara, who came on the scene against Pakistan in 1990, and to an extent, Chanderpaul, who first played against England in 1994.

The greats

That is a long time ago, 21 and 17 years ago to be exact, and when it is remembered that after Headley and Constantine in the 1930s and the Second War came Worrell, Weekes, Walcott, Ramadhin, and Valentine in the late 1940s and the early 1950s, that immediately after them came Sobers, Kanhai, Conrad Hunte, Basil Butcher, Franz Alexander, Jackie Hendriks, Gibbs, Hall, Griffith, and Deryck Murray in the middle of the 1950s and the early 1960s, that immediately after them came Lloyd, Rowe, Kallicharran, Richards, Greenidge, Roberts, Holding, Joel Garner, Colin Croft, and Malcolm Marshall in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and that immediately after them, before Lara and Chanderpaul, came Dujon, Walsh, and Ambrose in the 1980s, West Indies cricket really has been going through some rough times.

And it is not because of the lack of talent: it is because of a lack of discipline, the discipline to practise and to train, and the will to succeed, to perform in an effort to reach the mountain top, the drive for excellence.

It is also the lack of leadership skills, the lack of knowledge in those with the responsibility of leading the development process.

The question is this, who will win this contest?

When I look at the West Indies, and especially at fast bowlers Edwards, Roach, and Rampaul, and when I look at Bangladesh, even with spin bowlers such left-arm spin bowlers Abdur Razzak and former captain Shakib Al Hasan and off-spinner Mahmudullah, I believe that the West Indies should win.

In spite of the presence of batsmen like Tamim Iqbal, Imrul Kayes, Alok Kapali, Naeem Islam, and new captain Mohammad Ashraful I cannot see Bangladesh winning, except Chanderpaul, Samuels, and the fast bowlers fail.

I pray, however, that Chanderpaul and Samuels come good with the bat. I pray that the trio of fast bowlers bowl well, and I pray most of all that one, or two, of Barath, Bravo, Kraigg Brathwaite and Bishoo will bat so well and bowl so well that when the West Indies leave Bangladesh there will be hope of a return to the glory days.

It is anybody's guess, as Richardson has hinted, who will win, and it is expected to be a tough fight between the West Indies, once the best in the world, and Bangladesh, still the weakest, at least up to now.

As far as ability is concerned, however, there is no difference, or so it is said, between the West Indies and Bangladesh, or indeed between the West Indies and Kenya, and Namibia.

A man from India, writing on the cricket website Cricinfo recently on the hotly debated DRS system, said there was no difference between the four teams.

He said that instead of spending money trying to get the DRS right the ICC should spend that money developing the game in Bangladesh, in Kenya, in the West Indies, or in Namibia.