Winning ugly

Bland and featureless are not words you would normally associate with the Caribbean but these are some of the kinder adjectives being bandied about in trying to describe the monotony of the test series with England, which is meandering to a close in Trinidad.

The West Indies will feel fully justified in their tactics if they do indeed pull off the expected draw in the fifth Test match to secure a 1-0 victory as this will be their first series triumph over a major cricket nation for several years. England were firm favourites before the series began so this should be considered an upset, and a boost to cricket in the Caribbean. But it is surely a pyrrhic victory.

The last three matches have been devoid of entertainment as the anodyne pitches have produced an imbalance that has seen a glut of runs, with very little in it for the bowlers. After the drama of the first test in Jamaica and farce in Antigua we have seen batsmen rule the roost. In a succession of long innings untroubled by either the pitches, which have remained steadfastly flat throughout, or the bowlers who have grown increasingly exasperated by the unresponsiveness.

This has not been engaging cricket to watch and ultimately will have turned off many more people than a series victory will have attracted to the game. There is no begrudging the West Indian victory, which was established by the destruction of the English batting at Sabina Park and has been deserved as they have used the conditions to blunt England’s bowlers in the subsequent matches when faced by large first innings totals. The obdurate last wicket stand in Antigua showed a cussed determination not to be beaten.

However, as cricket tries to fight off the rival attractions of football and basketball for the attention of the next generation, it has not helped itself with this mundane, pedestrian procession of batsmen scoring endless runs with barely a flicker of danger or excitement. So whilst a successful team can be attractive this may be a prime example of winning ugly.

It's just not test cricket

Dear, oh dear. Listening to Sir Vivian Richards’ reaction to the abandoned test in Antigua was both painful and deeply sad. His anger was barely held in check when he was describing the people responsible for the shoddy preparation of the pitch, these “armchair generals have failed again.” Once the game started, it was immediately apparent that the ground, named after the greatest Antiguan cricketer, was unfit for the match and Richards’ anger was matched only by his embarrassment.

For the second time in recent history a Test Match in the West Indies has been abandoned within the first hour of the game. This spells disaster for test cricket as the game struggles to retain its popularity amongst the Caribbean youth and could be the final nail in the coffin for a game, which has been in terminal decline since the 1970s. The whole debacle left the players, commentators and especially the spectators forlorn, frustrated and flabbergasted. The shame is that the optimism that had been generated by the overwhelming victory in the First Test, is now masked by the sheer amateurism of the cricket authorities.

Many observers, after first sight, felt the pitch, which had been sanded far too heavily to compensate for the dampness, was going to be problematic. But nobody anticipated how disastrously under-prepared it was. After only 10 balls the game was up as the opening bowlers struggled to keep their footing. It is pathetic that there had not even been a trial run over the last few days and ridicule will now quite rightly be heaped upon the West Indies cricket board. Sheer incompetence is too kind a phrase to describe this fiasco. If the whole situation were not so disastrous it would be hilarious. West Indian cricket may never recover from this ignominy and in a way maybe the authorities do not deserve any better. Bring on the Beach Cricket World Cup, at least it would be better organised.

Was England's Jamaican capitulation a surprise?

So should we be surprised by the dismal performance of England’s cricketers in the first test at Sabina Park? The warning signs were there a few months ago when I heard Hugh Morris, the recently appointed Team Managing Director for ECB, speaking during the Indian tour on radio and all he came out with were corporate platitudes and management babble. Although he was interviewed for a couple of minutes there was hardly any mention of cricketing matters, it was all about structure and targets. This man had clearly spent too long burying his head in MBA handbooks rather than Wisden.

The second sign of something going amiss was the clumsy and inept removal of both Pietersen and Moores at one fell swoop. To lose your captain suddenly is disturbing, but to also lose the coach at the same time creates turmoil and disruption. Morris and his men must have missed out on reading the chapter in their management tomes on making succession a smooth and almost organic process. They decided, in their infinite wisdom, to go down the fractious and unsettling route. The whole furore over the loss of both captain and coach centred on who told tales and alongside stories of cliques in the team, it all began to resemble a pathetic playground squabble.

Through the whole squalid episode English cricket lost dignity, leadership and respect and that is not a basis for the “high performance culture” so enamoured by the new guard at the ECB. If this had been the bungling of the old style stuffed shirts we would have all nodded and wryly observed that’s what you get when you have traditionalists in charge. But we are in the modern era and there is really no excuse for such amateur incompetence.

Focus is another word/ concept that is so beloved of the new management and is often seen as the panacea to any sporting sides’ problems. Unfortunately, focus has been lost amid the squabbling and rancour of the weeks running up to the tour of the West Indies. Hazarding a guess at what occupied the players’ minds the first few would revolve around how would KP react to losing the captaincy after such a brief reign, who is going to be the new temporary coach, who is going to be the new permanent coach and when will they be appointed, how will Andrew Strauss get on as captain, how much will x be worth in IPL auction. Another major question was how would this affect chances in this summer’s Ashes.

Whilst these are understandable considerations in the circumstances, there was one oversight, which undermined the team and probably led to the debacle of the second innings in Jamaica. There was hardly room to give any thought to the opposition and such thoughtlessness is bound to leave a team exposed to underperformance. This lack of preparation was borne out of the combination of internecine strife and an arrogance that the West Indies were merely there as cannon fodder in the build-up to Australia at home. So scrambling to a total of 51 and losing by an innings should not have been a surprise to most, but one feels that those in charge are scratching their heads as they check their spreadsheets one more time.