One team was prepared, one team shouldn't have bothered turning up

A quick look back at this Test match, with neutral eyes, would tell the complete story. One team was totally prepared for the fray, the other should not have even bothered to turn up, since they did not compete. To be honest, Australia probably won this 1st test while the West Indies were still on their way to Australia, or even by in the Caribbean. Some explanations are due. These are not excuses, mind you, but real hard facts. Also, Australia are not responsible for West Indies cricket.

Australia have not played a Test match since March/April, against New Zealand earlier this year. The West Indies not only played against England in the English summer, but even before that, managed to just beat Pakistan at home, via some very dubious decisions, and Zimbabwe too. While Australia did play some out of season cricket, one day games, at the Colonial Stadium against South Africa in August this year, that was actually very ideal, since it would have brought their minds back gradually to the task at hand in November, when they would be making their assault on the West Indies' record of 11 Test wins in succession.

In the meantime, after the West Indies returned from England, they played in a one day competition in Kenya, like Australia, but then a one day regional competition in Jamaica. That one day competition in Jamaica should have been very instrumental in telling the Caribbean powers-that-be in West Indies cricket that something was amiss. No one heeded the signs.

In the Red Stripe Bowl competition just before coming to Australia, there was only one century by any batsman at all, over nearly three weeks of cricket. Ironically, that batsman, Junior Murray of the Windward islands, is not even in Australia. All of the Test players competed for their respective countries in that competition. Additionally, in the final set of games, the semi-finals and finals, none of the teams in "The Final Four" managed to get 200 in any 50 over spell. That in itself should have been a warning that the West Indian batsmen, who comprised most of the batsmen for that final segment, that they were not up to speed for a tour of Australia.

Then the West Indies had a camp in Jamaica for about a week or so before coming to Australia. This was like water on a duck's back. Already tired, that camp would have done little to entice the West Indian players to either be up for the tour, or to enhance their abilities, already drained from the last year. Like Australia, they needed pure rest. Unlike Australia, they could not get it.

To add fuel to that fire, if you will, the team's normal psychologist, Dr. Rudi Webster, was nowhere to be seen. His last assignment was ended just as the West Indies were losing that tortuous Test match at Lords which turned around the team's English summer after they had beaten England in the 1st Test. The West Indies cricket team has not been good for some time, as Sir Gary Sobers suggested, but being beaten by England was exactly the last straw. The team has not been itself since Lords, in June last.

Rather weirdly, Dr. Webster is being used at home for the West Indies cricket team, but not away, fully, where the team has been struggling for the last several years overseas. If anyone could explain that to me, then they could have my lost fortunes too. Australia, on the other hand, tries to use their on-call psychologists as often as they require them. The case of Mark Waugh, with the match-fixing situation, is a case in point.

With that kind of preparation, the West Indies were on a tight tether, only waiting to explode. Unluckily for them, the Australians knew this too. The West Indies were simply not ready at all for the fray. Steve Waugh and his guys knew that and worked at making it even more difficult for the West Indies to effect any elasticity and come-back. In a word, the West Indies were beaten before this first Test started.

In 1996, Perth was used for the last Test match. In this tour, pointedly, the West Indies will be struggling there next week to avert another humiliation, via Glen McGrath and Brett Lee. That is not incidental. Australia knows that the West Indies are cannon fodder now, and are using it, as they should, to their advantage. Notice that the best batting pitches, Adelaide and Sydney, will only be used after Australia had calculated that they will have broken the record, just in case Brian Lara and co get going.

The West Indies batsmen are all in need of rest and some special psychological help too. The body language of especially the senior batsmen, and this is even going down to the newer ones too; Ramnaresh Sarwan has lost his way, his confidence and his bounce too; speaks volumes. Notice that the West Indies bowlers have tried to even things out. Not only are they hearing, but, seemingly, they are listening. In the meantime, Jimmy Adams, Brian Lara, even Shiv Chanderpaul, at least in the 1st innings, Sherwin Campbell, Darren Ganga and Ramnaresh Sarwan seemed somewhat misplaced collectively.

Steve Waugh was brilliant as a captain in this game. His move to bring on Stuart MacGill as the first change in the 1st innings was a master stroke, since all expected it to be an all out war with fast bowlers. MacGill duly repaid his captain's cunning and confidence with the prized, almost invaluable wicket of Sherwin Campbell, probably just less so than that of Lara. Campbell is normally the pebble, as opposed to the rock, that the West Indies try to build their innings on.

When Lara strode to the crease, the psychological trap was already set, as McGrath had been on a rest break for over a half an hour, ready for the effort once more. He too did not disappoint. Lara duly edged McGrath's first delivery to him, the batsman badly out of place in foot movement, to the 'keeper. That, for all intents and purposes of the game, was that. Waugh had outplayed the entire West Indies cricket team's hierarchy in just a few overs of the first day. With Lara gone, removed psychologically more than physically, the rest of the team simply could not be strong enough to cope.

As Glenn McGrath, the eventual "Man of the Match" suggested after his six wickets in the 1st innings; "I will bowl much better than I did today and get maybe one wicket." He too knew that, while not really lucky, he had not really bowled as well as he could to get those wickets. They were not really presented to him neither. He and his captain had worked for them long before the game started.

Perth will be another matter altogether next week. The West Indies have very little time to recoup. There is even talk of perhaps a psychologist for the team being brought in. Talk about closing the door after the horse has bolted. For the West Indies to catch up now, they will have to work at warp speed. From very recent testimony, they do not even seem to be able to come with the speed of Brett Lee and Glenn McGrath.