As a public relations exercise the West
Indies tour of South Africa was more than a national disaster. Their
embarrassing performances have affected the pace of the transformation
programme as well as curbed enthusiasm in some development areas.
And when several schoolteachers in several black dormitory towns on
the Reef confirm that the efforts of Brian Lara's team was so
disappointing that a large number of children have serious questions
to ask of the West Indies captain.
They looked for heroes but found none; they looked for icons on which
to model their own game and develop their technique and were left
wondering and disturbed at what they saw. They looked at glossy
magazine pictures and asked if Lara and Co were not imposters dressed
in West Indies clothes and wearing maroon hats, caps and helmets.
For thousands of youngsters, fed on a diet of West Indies
invincibility, to be confronted by this disorganised band of rabble
hurt their innocent pride. Men, whose roots lay in Africa, or Asia,
have left many hopefuls disillusioned. They were "bitterly
disappointed" over how the first black adult players they had seen had
"failed them by being second rate" with some older children feeling
"the West Indians were bereft of genuine playing skills".
A side which was universally approved in the Caribbean, not only lost
the Test series 5-0 and the limited-overs international series
6-1. They also lost credibility and, along the way, the respect of
development scheme youngsters who looked to them for guidance but
found none.
"There are so many kids who feel cheated by the way the West Indians
played there are some lost interest in the game," said Monica Bapella,
from Tembisa. "They had been led to believe that here was a side, a
black side, with players whom they could identify."
She talked of projects at some schools where players such as Lara,
Carl Hooper and fast bowlers Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh had
their playing careers put up on walls.
In early November their names were as revered as much as had been
Allan Donald, Jonty Rhodes, Gary Kirsten and Hansie Cronje.
It was to have been the showpiece tour of the ambitious United Cricket
Board's strategy. But it flopped. They proved to be paper tigers: no
bite, no snap, no growl.
From the time it was hijacked by the mercenary element among the
players who then ran the tour for their own benefit, the roles of
manager Clive Lloyd and Malcolm Marshall were seen to be redundant.
Player power, depicted as despotic and egotistical heavily laced with
financial greed, saw the side drift in different directions,
leaderless on the field and disjointed off it. The public felt
defrauded by the poor quality of skills the players exhibited in a
Test series which became so one-sided that the West Indies managed to
win about two and half sessions out of a possible 60 and a half
sessions played during the five Tests.
Lara lamented at SuperSport Centurion how the 6-1 limited overs series
defeat was "disappointing result" but declined to admit it had caused
serious indigestion among the players who had lost interest in the
exercise and were unable to stomach further humiliation.
Little wonder Curtly Ambrose declined to play the last match Little
wonder too that Lloyd, the manager, and the coach, Marshall, known for
their sense of humour and good natured friendliness, were often seen
as outsiders. Lara and the gang who won their "industrial action" at a
London Airport hotel controlled a side which wrecked a tour that was
to have been historic as well as further unifying the West Indies and
South African brotherhood.
By the time the listing hulk arrived for the final match of the slogs
there were many who were disenchanted.
Their loyal fans had long slipped off home, dwindling to a
handful. Some stayed on to enjoy the warm South African hospitality
before they too departed wondering if there is a future for the game
as they know it in the Caribbean, and distressed at how thousand of
black South African school children felt betrayed.
More than that, great names from the past who rallied around the side,
such as Conrad Hunte became just as disenchanted by the open greed of
a few players who, at the expense of the greater interest of the game
in their islands, brought international shame on themselves.
While prime minsters from most islands and governments became involved
in trying to solve the early tour crisis, the West Indies Cricket
Board were seen to be the bad guys. They bowed "in the best interests
and fairness in the name of West Indies sport" to rescind their
decision to fire Lara as captain and Hooper as his deputy.
From that point, despite Lara's "apology to the South African public"
the tour was doomed as internal friction, which often burst into the
open, split the team.
Now the WICB, led by their president, Pat Rousseau, have to pick up
the pieces and stitch together what they can out of the mess left by
government interference in the pay debacle
In a subdued mood after the last match of the tour at SuperSport
Centurion, Lara admitted he was quite prepared to serve the West
Indies in any capacity if the board saw fit to dispense with his
services as captain. Whatever reports Lara, Lloyd and Marshall
submitted to the WICB on their views of what went wrong, the board's
interest in the tour lost touch to the extent they were not aware of
the result of the match in Bloemfontein until newspaper reports the
next day.
To bring out a side as allegedly as strong as this one and then watch
it disintegrate match by match, the pieces clattering rung by rung
down a ladder named "chaos", was more like watch a surrealist dream
unfold: detached and disjointed, frame by frame. Under Lara they were
leaderless; only when Carl Hooper temporarily took over was there a
sense of cohesion on the field.
But out of the rubble we saw there was still a spark of fighting
spirit. Shivnarine Chanderpaul, sacrificed when forced to bat at
three in the tests, impressed on and off the field; Franklyn Rose, a
shock omission from the Port Elizabeth Test, Darren Ganga, a totally
pleasant young man with a growing talent who was subjected to heavy
pressure; Mervyn Dillon and Reon King, drafted in for the slogs and
not given a chance to settle. A small core, but one the Windies can
build on.
Then there is Jimmy Adams, the man who led West Indies A on their tour
of South Africa 12 months before, was missing through a strange
accident. Lara admitted Adams' ability to cement an innings together
when under pressure, was a missing component in the team's lower
middle-order make up. He should return to the side for the matches
against Australia and the difference should be immediately noticeable
with Ridley Jacobs at seven form a solid lower-order foundation.
There were the puzzling omissions of Vasbert Drakes, a bowler who had
to play for Border in South Africa if he was to survive at all; and
Ottis Gibson from the original touring party. Gibson did play in the
fourth Test at Newlands.
Hiding behind the excuse that Drakes had not played in the Caribbean
the previous season as the reason for his exclusion is as false as
suggesting Sir Garfield Sobers, because he played in Australia, did
not deserve to be part of the team either.
Yet the biggest problem was, apart from the first innings opening
partnership between Philo Wallace and Junior Murray in the third Test
at Kingsmead, was the lack of a substantial top-order batting. And
there is no end to this problem, despite Lara's claim the best players
available in the West Indies were either in South Africa or the A team
on the sub-continent. The legacy left by Desmond Haynes and Gordon
Greenidge has not been nurtured.
If there is to be a hope for the West Indies, as a unity factor, the
cure lies within and governments making available funds to establish
an academy. Reg Scarlett, a former Test player who had a look at the
South African system of regeneration, said as much in Durban during
the third Test.
In the Caribbean island identity and independence is jealously
guarded. To the outside world the islands which make up the cricket
community are regarded as part of the greater West Indies. C L R
James, the great writer and philosopher, Sir Frank Worrell and George
Headley, great icons of the West Indies past, must be weeping from
their pavilion chairs in the sky at how the sport which gave the West
Indies an identity of whch to be proud is being destroyed.
When he arrived in South Africa a week late and apologised for
delaying to the start of the tour, Lara said there had been no
intention not to come to South Africa.
It was suggested, more than once during the tour that he should
apologise again for the way they played.
Perhaps he should now apologise to the West Indian public for the
shame he inflicted on them and step down as captain and give it to
someone more deserving.
How it has all changed. In 1993, after the triangular Total Trophy
series, Lara signed with Northerns for a few day/night matches. On a
wet afternoon at Centurion Park, he talked quietly and with a certain
shy humbleness of his thoughts about the game and the great West
Indies future. He also talked with deep insight on what he referred to
"the soul of batting".
Always friendly, and open, willing to share a joke, join in a meal or
a drink, the young man known as Brian Charles Lara was humility
itself. He trained hard and talked of his passion for batting and
desire for winning.
When he returned 18 moths later, two world records etched on the
game's roll of honour and much more famous he brushed aside his
"friends" of those few weeks in Centurion. They had gone to see him at
the airport with an invitation to dinner.
But out stepped one B C Lara, with a new girlfriend, and far more
interested in the limelight and the sound of cash jingling in his
pocket.
That image has not changed down the years and with it lies the
wreckage of a sport which spelt fame and hope for generations of
Caribbean people.
Source :: Trevor Chesterfield, Pretoria News