West Indies may be demoted to second tier...

[Occasional Fan]

Thanks for posting the report about WICB's attendance at the ICC Meeting, Ninjaman. Like you, I can't see anything positive coming from a two-tier system in what is essentially still a ten-horse race (sorry to mix metaphors). The idea of any of the present top eight being in Division Two is just to terrible to think of. Things in this game move in cycles: WI are having a rough few years at the moment (and they're not alone). WICB might need to look hard at how to put its house in order, as indeed might the ECB, which also has a way to go to bring its national team back as a credible world leader. Putting the West Indies in Division Two would not be any more helpful to them that putting England in Division Two would be to England. And a century or more of tradition would be lost at a stroke, with ancient popular contests falling out of the calendar as rivals are separated by an arbitrary divisional structure.

The idea stinks. I hope the ICC don't have their fingers up their noses when they look at it.

[jrwb]

In reply to Ninjamans remark about the end of the WI as an international team with a demotion - is he for a moment suggesting that they should remain where they are, wasting the test efforts of the major cricketing nations? Perhaps they should be relegated to pre-1928 status and get to play only the counties in England and work their way up from there like they did before...

Yet I admit that a demotion for the West Indies would have a disastrous effect in the West Indies, and I would welcome some solution (other than drowning the whole lot of them) to the problem.

Granted that cricket is different now from the '60s and '70s, but this can not be used as an excuse for the failure of our chaps. Many test players of the '70s and '80s learned their trade from league and county cricket in England, but that does not necessarily mean that because that avenue is now closed that we can't produce good players. Fellas like Headley and Weekes and Kanhai were successful before/withoutbeing engaged in England.

An it is true that many modern and scientific developments in cricket have left the losers...oops...West Indies far behind....

[Aurelius]

Call me an optimist, but I believe that the Windies have a decent chance in the Sri Lanka series. Sri Lanka's batting line-up is nothing special, and their bowling is handicapped by the absence of both Murali and Malinga. The West Indies, meanwhile, have a fairly equal top-order, and in this case the better bowling attack. It should be an interesting series.

[Ninjaman]

Originally Posted by jrwb

In reply to Ninjamans remark about the end of the WI as an international team with a demotion - is he for a moment suggesting that they should remain where they are, wasting the test efforts of the major cricketing nations?

Wasting their efforts?

It is called sport. Sometimes some teams will be better than others, when you are better than another team, you play hard and fair, beat them, shake their hands and leave/wish them goodbye. You don't arrogantly assume your efforts, though better, are worth more than others.

The drive behind this idiotic 2 tier system is nothing but complete arrogance.

Is Roger Federer wasting his time when he draws the guy ranked 400 in the world in the Wimbledon 1st Rd?
Is Man Utd wasting their time when they are drawn against Aldershot or Acccrington Stanley in the FA Cup 3rd Rd?

Perhaps they should be relegated to pre-1928 status and get to play only the counties in England and work their way up from there like they did before...

If they are demoted there will be no working their way up. You can't ask a team to progress under a pre-1928 system in a cricketing world that is completely different.

Counties won't play their full teams for one and no progress will be made against weak teams.

Revenue streams (which are even more vital nowadays) will be severely curtailed and the domestic running of the game (however poor it is now) will be even worse.

People don't get better and improve by being shunned and marginalised. They get better by being included and those with advice and assistance provide it to them. This is a simple fact that the two tier crusaders fail to realise.

Kick them out if they wish but don't claim it is to help them.

There will be a push in the WICB to actually dussolve it and the larger nations like Jamaica, T&T, Guyana and Barbados will go alone because without top flight cricket the need for a WICB will cease to actually exists because the WICB only exists because of Test cricket.

Granted that cricket is different now from the '60s and '70s, but this can not be used as an excuse for the failure of our chaps. Many test players of the '70s and '80s learned their trade from league and county cricket in England, but that does not necessarily mean that because that avenue is now closed that we can't produce good players. Fellas like Headley and Weekes and Kanhai were successful before/withoutbeing engaged in England.

None of it is an excuse, But it is a reason.

The game is far more profesionally oriented than the times our great players were being produced. If we keep believing that we'll just find these naturally talented players that will carry us back up the rankings table in this era, then we will continue to be bottom.

And many people still involved in the game think like YOU and assume we will find them.

That is why we have fallen to where we are and will not be rising anytime soon.

Australia, when they were at their lowest ebb of the 1980s, introduced their system to produce Test quality. It works.

They worked with what they were given and then put their players through a quite clear system designed to produce what we see on our screens.

Likewise England, no matter how much their fans think their world is going to collapse when they lose a Test series!

It is not luck.

Why on Earth do people still persist with mentioning Weekes/Headley/Kanhai etc..?

Those guys were exceptional but also were of an era long gone.

The manner in which you produce players is different though the game is similar.

This is the same with many other sports.

It amazes me that anyone actually thinks we are just going to "find" players with little or no training that are going to challenge the likes of Australia, England and India with their more professional systems.

But, ultimately, the WI needs to produce a solid and productive domestic game poplulated with players (the majority of whom will never play for the WI) playing good cricket.

When that happens, the Weekes, Headley, Sobers and Lara of this generation will appear.

One of our problems now is we wish to produce those players straight off with nothing behind it to support it.

Australia's strength isn't just that Ponting/Hayden/Lee are good.

It is that when Langer goes they can pick from 3 to 4 State players who will justt fit in seamlessly who know what is expected of them and make sure they do perform because if they don't in a very short time someone else will be given a go.

Furthermore, sport doesn't exist in a vacuum.

Australia is a healthy economy.
England is a healthy economy.
India is a growing economy.

The economic realities of the WI mean the steps we need are hampered by them plus the logistics unique to the WI alone.

There is no one more critical of WI performance than me. No one more willing to criticise and curse some of our underacheivers. However, this must still be done with some respect.

Ridiculing people is not the way to go.

[jrwb]

I don't know if Ninjaman thinks he's going to take cricketing duds and with the right training and exposure turn them into Australian winners - you must start with very good talent and work from there.

The WI have always had to contend with superior coaching and facilities when playing teams like England and Australia - this is nothing new. Obviously methods will be developed and improved over the years, but in spite of the superior training men like Peter May and Colin Cowdrey received, we were still able to give them a drubbing on a regular basis with our comparatively uncoached, raw players. Desmond Haynes once said to me that his West Indian team would beat the current Aussie team easily. I thought he was being overly optimistic - I personally feel that Lloyd's side would have had a hell of a time beating Ponting's side.

So one cannot entirely blame superior cricketing technology for being almost entirely responsible for the West Indian demise - a close look at the present team reveals serious drawbacks in basic techniques and attitudes which have always been part of the game, science or no science - yet it is true that this disparity with training and facilities is taking its toll on WI cricket. This may be particularly true in revealing and honing new talent in departments of the game far removed from the test environment.

Batsmen like Sarwan and Ganga, when compared to Chanderpaul or Ganguly, for example, reveal startling deficiencies in temperament and mental stamina. The inevitable result of these shortcomings are innings terminated by improper shot selection and general lack of that finely tuned technique absolutely necessary for a successful test batsman. These chaps are great for first class cricket, but lack the ability to build innings on a regular basis against test quality bowling.

I reserve the right to ridicule any player's ability or right to inclusion in a side - these are not personal insults, but directed at a player's cricket and not his dignity as a human being.

[Ninjaman]

Originally Posted by jrwb

I don't know if Ninjaman thinks he's going to take cricketing duds and with the right training and exposure turn them into Australian winners - you must start with very good talent and work from there.

Which we do have. I'm tired of seeing talented cricketers of school going age.

The WI (and its constituent territories) regularly put out school age or what they call age group teams that more than hold their own against other countries.

What happens after that is as they reach school leaving age and become young adults, the more successful teams have a better structure for them to slip into.

This is far more importnat in TODAY'S climate of cricketing development.

You might wish to call them duds to reinforce your argument but they are not.

The WI have always had to contend with superior coaching and facilities when playing teams like England and Australia - this is nothing new. Obviously methods will be developed and improved over the years, but in spite of the superior training men like Peter May and Colin Cowdrey received, we were still able to give them a drubbing on a regular basis with our comparatively uncoached, raw players.

Let's have a quick look. Peter May and Colin Cowdrey? That's 50s and 60s.

I still see you persist with highlighting our previous successes of around 50 years ago and trying to equate it with current times.

Back then, natural talent could get you a long way. But back then, contrary to those who fail to see how things have changed, things are different now.

And if you want to believe that we just have no more natural talent because the pool has dried up and if we were to just find some we could put them against the Aussies as they are now and they would succeed, then stay in the past.

If all it takes is natural talent nowadays then it suprises why Australia and England spend all those millions on the barrage of specialists and a nulti-million pound/dollar first class system to produce and nurture those players.

So yes. Back in the 50s and 60s we could produce naturals to take on the world's best but we fell away in the early 1970s and then went to Australia and got battered.

Then, ironically, it was the WI who ramped up the professionalism needed to dominate.

Our captain galvanised us into a TEAM, hired a full time trainer (Dennis Waight) and made the team through dint of hard work into the fittest team on the circuit and refused to perform to the "calypso" tag of naturally talented but also quick to mentally disintegrate that some abroad held of us. And the result is history.

This has been taken on to the next level and even further by the powerhorses of cricket today.

I'm not involved in youth cricket but I know quite a few who are and this is the reality of what they have to do deal with. Not one of them is saying they see no talent. In fact, they see loads of it.

Desmond Haynes once said to me that his West Indian team would beat the current Aussie team easily. I thought he was being overly optimistic - I personally feel that Lloyd's side would have had a hell of a time beating Ponting's side.

Desmond Haynes also once said that there is lots of talent in the West Indies.

However, he said, talent without direction is like an octopus on rollerskates. You might get movement but you never know if it is forwards, sideways or backwards.

So one cannot entirely blame superior cricketing technology for being almost entirely responsible for the West Indian demise - a close look at the present team reveals serious drawbacks in basic techniques and attitudes which have always been part of the game, science or no science - yet it is true that this disparity with training and facilities is taking its toll on WI cricket. This may be particularly true in revealing and honing new talent in departments of the game far removed from the test environment.

Nothing I've said is entirely to blame for our demise. It is always a combinatory effect.

One thing that has brought about our demise though is continually harking back to what we did or who we had in a previous era. We are not playing in a era like that anymore.

Going out now with just natural talent will get you beat. So telling our youngsters that natural talent alone will do it (because it worked for Headley in the 20/30s!) and you have to be born or in natural possession of "test" class and it is not something you have to work on is not the right way.

We got to happy being the best and never moved with the times. We thought we'd always have players of the same quality to replace the ones who were retiring (or in our case, forced to retire) and paid no attention to what others were doing and ensuring our system would continue to produce players of the requisite quality.

Batsmen like Sarwan and Ganga, when compared to Chanderpaul or Ganguly, for example, reveal startling deficiencies in temperament and mental stamina. The inevitable result of these shortcomings are innings terminated by improper shot selection and general lack of that finely tuned technique absolutely necessary for a successful test batsman. These chaps are great for first class cricket, but lack the ability to build innings on a regular basis against test quality bowling.

There's no argument here on that regard. Though Sarwan is way better than Ganga.

However, I bet you wil find that Sarwan has never actually had to be able to do some of the things he needs to do to succeed at the Test level in the first class arena and below that in which he was produced. They are all products of the cricketing environment in which they come from.

I reserve the right to ridicule any player's ability or right to inclusion in a side - these are not personal insults, but directed at a player's cricket and not his dignity as a human being.

No one's wishing to take away your right. Ridicule as you wish. But you must also acknowledge my right to disagree with you.

[jrwb]

Ninjaman seems to be one of those people who throws the past in the dustbin. He should try tro get his hands on In Celebration of Cricket and have a good read. Cricket is an ever-changing game, and these changes obviously overlap - there is no distinct line between one period and the other, rather, quite a lot of gray in between...

One of the most important benefits of the study of history, cricket or otherwise, is the lessons learnt from the past, and no matter how much technology that is applied to it, the final thing is that red ball being sent to the batsman who has a bat to deal with it. Men like Glenn Mcgrath - regardless of how much training they have had still have to deliver that ball to the batsman in a certain way - development and technology cover the background to what actually happens on the field, but neither the ball nor the bat nor the players have any electronic implants designed to improve things. They are still the same human beings with the same equipment doing the same job.

Strategies will change with time - tactics suitable to conditions in 1905 may not have been suitable in 1948, and so on - but the essentials remain exactly the same - hit the ball with the bat. Bats are supposed to have more hitting power than those of yesteryear - but when Albert Trott hit a straight drive over the Lords Pavilion in the 1890's, it was with a bat of the time - yet I have never heard of anyone else doing the same with the so-called modern bats - so improved equipment is not always as effective as some might think.

So do not hide behind the fact that cricket then isn't cricket now - as I have said, the basics haven't changed, and whether the delivery is from your friend Wavell Hinds or S F Barnes certain criteria, which haver NEVER changed have to be satisfied in order for the delivery to be a good one. You should read your cricket history, and you will discover that a man like Barnes would have been immensely sucessful today - not because he would bowl the same thing he bowled in 1908, but he had the ability to bowl what the conditions demanded, and he would have the skill to do just that nowadays - that is why Arlott described him as the 'greatest of all bowlers' . Obviously bowlers of limited ability do not have that flexibility to change their deliveries to suit the various conditions they encounter, and quite often are only effective in certain conditions. A great batsman or bowler has the ability to change his style to suit the circumstances he plays in, and that's why Bradman would have been great even today...