When West Indies team itself is unfit?

Well the news has its say that the West Indies cricket Board (WICB) has scrapped contracts for Ramnaresh Sarwan, Narsingh Deonarine and Jerome Taylor owing to the same old reason that the above mentioned players' fitness does not cope up to the standards of the international cricket. As per my view, the aforementioned three players are the commonest of common names that can be heard in the West Indies team and what is more is that the new upcoming star cricketer in the West Indies team - Narsingh Deonarine has also been shown the gates. Nevermind though if the WICB's words have meaning.

The only name that is seen missing from the list would be Shivnarine Chanderapaul who has been taking the burden of the rusted West Indies team for more than a decade since the 1999 world cup after the retirement of the famous three deadly fast bowlers namely Curtly Ambose, Courteny Walsh and Ian Bishop. Of course, the names mentioned are fast bowlers. But, in their department, they did their job to the fullest extent, leaving little job for the batsmen to complete that included Chanderapaul and Brian Lara. Since then, the West Indies' burden has been shared by only Chanderapaul especially after Lara retired.

The other comparatively lesser known names are obviously Ramnaresh Sarwan and Chris Gayle (though Chris Gayle's name is not listed in the wrong list). Though not completely successful, the fast bowling line up of the West Indies team is headed by Jerome Taylor with equal support from Dwayne Smith and Dwayne Bravo. With Jerome being stripped of his contract, there would no doubt be a blow to the West Indies fast bowling line up which is otherwise also deteriorated. One can definitely ask what is the alternative in case a player is injured or speaking precise is not completely fit for the WICB to award contracts?

Though there can be no other option but to go ahead with the WICB, one has to imagine the lack of fitness of the senior players with the rest of the squad being healthy, if at all the WICB is to be believed. News also had its say that in addition to the three mentioned, even the wicket keeper Denesh Ramdin has been stripped of his national contract. This means that the West Indies team has an unfit player in all departments namely batting, bowling and wicket keeping. On the otherhand, new comers namely Kieron Pollard and Adrian Barat have been given full deals. How mean!

So, even the West Indies can dominate

The world was all set to forget that at one point of time most of the international records in both the tests ans one day internationals belonged, starting from the fact that they were the first team to win two world cups till Brian Lara scored an unbeaten 400 against England at St Antigua to not only become the highest individual run scorer but also became the only player to score a quadruple hundred. And, if heir recent past is considered, they have lost most of their fan following who are now a days found betting against them be it against any opposition.

And, the West Indies in most of the occasions were in support of that. They have a recent history of faring so badly in all the three formats of the game that whenever West Indies even goes in for a draw, that used to raise eyebrows. This was the case against Australia when the West Indies drew a test match at Adelaide. And, whenever the West Indies were able to snatch, it was at the cost of their opposition who at times underestimated the same. And, this was evident in the second match against Zimbabwe where the West Indies won by 4 wickets chasing just 207 runs.

However, things improved a lot in the third one dayer played at Kingstown where the West Indies took the game away from Zimbabwe in a one sided manner. The West Indies once again showed Zimbabwe that they have been stripped off their test status some five years back. West Indies once again reminded the Zimbabweans that they could not qualify for either the ICC champions trophy or the world T20 last year. In the third one dayer, Zimbabwe were nowhere in the game and the West Indies also showed the fans that atleast at home they can come out victorious.

This time the West Indies team didn't leave any stone unturned when they excelled in all three departments of the game. This was not really evident when the entire West Indies team could not even go past 250 on board when in today's cricket, 300+ also is an average score. And, like always, the West Indies needed the contribution of Shivnarine Chanderapaul to lead the batting though others followed suit. It was then it was realized that the pitch had nothing to offer for the batsmen when there was only one Zimbabwean batsman who was comparatively better than the rest. There was just 1 six in the entire Zimbabwean innings, with the highest individual score being 35.

Once again, the man of the match was awarded to the wrong person who could all do was to extract something which the pitch assisted. The real challenge was to stand and deliver which was possible from Chanderapaul. But, once again the mistake has to be regretted by all.

Windies lose by only 2 runs

This was one last thing that the West Indies would have wanted to happen when they lost the first match of the 5 match one day series to Zimbabwe at Guyana by 2 runs. This should be no surprise for anyone keeping in mind the caliber of the present West Indies team which can least beat any non test playing nation alone. Chris Gayle must be glad that his team lost only by two runs when predictions had their say that West Indies would lose the game by a mile. In a way, West Indies would have silenced all critics pointing towards them.

The only bowler from the West Indies side who had some sort of success comparatively was Suliemann Benn when he returned with 4 overs maiden with only Miller being able to bowl another over maiden for the entire West Indies team. Though Kieron Pollard was successful in terms of number of wickets bagged, he gave away 59 runs from his ten overs at 5.9 an over which was more than the 5.08 an over that the entire Zimbabwean innings could manage. It was a team combination from the Zimbabwean side with 5 of the 7 Zimbabwean batsmen putting up decent individual scores.

However, this was not the way the West Indian innings started when the top three batsmen in terms of order of making it to the crease saw posting individual scores above 50. However, it was the same old batsmen in Chris Gayle and Shivnarine Chanderapaul who made the job easy for the West Indies team so the the batsmen making it to the crease later in the innings can cash in on the same which didn't really happen. It was a tough task to pick the best from the Zimbabwean bowlers where a bowler who returns with 3 wickets gives away runs at the rate of 12 an over.

And the next best bowler in terms of wickets namely Greg Lamb returns with figures of 6.40 in the 5 overs he bowled. However, irrespective of who gave away how many runs and how many wickets fell, the end result declared Zimbabwe as winners by a margin a 2 runs. After the exit of the top 3 batsmen namely Gayle, Chandrapaul and Adrian Barath there were just 2 scored above 10 with none of them being able to score more than 20. Instead extras had its share of 22 runs which makes it the 4th among top run scorers for the West Indies in the match.

One has to really pity Gayle

It is just not understandable whether it is curse for Chris Gayle to captain a West Indies team that has nothing but scrap in it. The eleven players who faced Australia in yesterday's first T20 match against Australia had just four names that were making rounds in the West Indies team namely Gayle himself, Morton, Smith and Sammy compared to the rest of the players. The rest of the 7 players were there only to fill the vacant positions in the playing XI. This was more or less the squad that faced Bangladesh almost a year ago and gifted Bangladesh their first test series victory.

This was needless to be said that Bangladesh tasted their first ever test series victory against the West Indies and that too was fortunate enough for them to have it outside home. Anyways, coming to the 1st T20 game between West Indies and Australia, scoreboard suggests that Australia is just wasting its resources by going in for players like Shane Watson, Shaun Tait and others when lesser known players who are still going through a rotational basis in Australian domestic cricket. The first 40+ individual score from a West Indian batsman with a strike rate of 100+ happened to be Dinesh Ramdin whose batting position was 8^th.

The entire West Indian innings contained no sixes absolutely. Anyway, it might not be the number of sixes that matter in a game. And not even the presence of experienced lads who can turn around the game. But, the situation with the West Indies is nothing but pathetic. All that the West Indies could manage to do was not to lose all the 10 wickets that they had. They lost 8 wickets, which was equal to the number of wickets lost by the Australians as well. One has to wonder as to how come West Indies could make it to the semis of the T20 world cup in England last year?

West Indies beat India and England in the super eights of the world T20, after they beat Australia to enter the super eights. Since then, they have never been able to win even a single T20 game whatsoever. Of course, the presence of Shivnarine Chanderapaul and Ramnaresh Sarwan will make a lot of difference to the West Indies team. For, they can atleast add few more runs to the West Indies' total that is otherwise miser. A part time bowler in Chris Gayle had to use his experience to grab two Aussie wickets which were price worthy ones namely Shane Watson and David Hussey. In fact, it was Gayle who provided his team with a breakthrough by dismissing Watson.

With so much responsibility and always the need being for Gayle to fight a losing battle, one has to really pity Gayle.

Patented Records

Well, yesterday in the third day of the 1^st test match between India and South Africa, SachinTendulkar recorded his 47^th test hundred and Virender Sehwag his 19^th test hundred, which is not the discussion here. But, Sehwag's feat of 100 in just 87 balls is one. It has been almost a decade since the newspapers make headlines whenever Sachin Tendulkar scores a hundred. On the otherhand, whenever Sachin Tendulkar used to get out in his nineties, that used to make headlines. So, would be Sehwag whenever he scores a fastest hundred or a fastest double hundred.

In the ongoing 2nd test at Kolkata, Sehwag made headlines for not scoring the fastest fifty when at one stage of the match he was found having a score of 44 from just 22 balls. This has been the usual way that Sehwag's innings have been in the recent past. If anyone scores a hundred with a strike rate of more than hundred the first name that would strike anyone's mind would be that of Virender Sehwag. This can never seems to be broken atleast in the near future. So would be the number of matches played, number of hundreds scored and the number of runs piled by none other than Sachin Tendulkar would be hard to even come closer.

It would take more than a century or even more than that for anybody to come closer to the batting records held by Sachin Tendulkar. The other record that still stands unbroken is the batting average of 99.99 held by Sir Don Bradman that can never be beaten. Then comes the unbeaten score of 400 by Brian Lara and his two scores above 350 and 375 (to be precise). Then on the list would be the perfect 10 taken by Jim Laker and Anil Kumble that can happen only may be once in a century. One has to be lucky to have survived throughout the nineties to have witnessed two such feats.

Scoring 36 runs off an over may not be a distinct feat though it is spectacular and might raise eye brows, with teams like Bermuda and Holland out there. A Last ball six to win a match is also a record of the past when at present there are three such records held by Javed Mianded, a batsman from Zimbabwe (name unable to be recalled) and by Shivnarine Chandrapaul. Though there has been a chase of 400+ total, in the coming years one can expect few more such chases. Some unclaimed records are a perfect 10 in LOIs, 6 wickets in an over, a double hundred in LOIs and a 1000 run in an innings of a test match for a winning cause to mention a few. Are we lucky enough to see them in our life time???