West Indies need to lift their intensity

Given the new policy of selectorial confusion, officially described as rotation, and the standard of the opposition, the West Indies series against Zimbabwe has been as much use as preparation for the real challenge to come against India over the next few weeks as an 11-Plus syllabus for an A-level exam.

The one nominal benefit has been derived from the results. Four consecutive victories for a team beaten in 19 of the previous 22 completed ODIs is not to be scoffed at - even if they were over a side obliged to turn to a group of adolescents prematurely promoted above their station by the exodus of all of Zimbabwe's players of genuine international standard because of the problems that have seemingly infected everything in that beautiful, benighted country.

Such a sequence should, at least, have diminished the defeatism that has been an inevitable offshoot of the dreadful record of recent times. But what lies ahead is an altogether more daunting assignment.

The Indians come as No 3 on the ICC's latest ODI rankings with comprehensive victories over Pakistan and England earlier in the year. West Indies are No 8 on the same list. Their team is not made up of anonymous novices accustomed to age-group and club cricket. Instead, their names and their records are well known across the cricketing world - the captain Rahul Dravid, the devastating opener Virender Sewag, the explosive wicket-keeper batsman Mahendra Singh Dhoni, the young allrounders Yuvraj Singh and Irfan Pathan, the offspinner, Harbhajan Singh. Even their greatest player of the age, Sachin Tendulkar, currently recovering from a shoulder operation, is unlikely to be missed.

So do the selectors have any better idea now as to who they should present in the five ODIs against India than they did at the start of the Zimbabwe series in which they used 17 players and made at least three changes for every match.

There have been three different pairs of opening batsmen and four sets of new-ball bowlers. Batsmen have been shifted up and down the order like yo-yos. It was a sure recipe for uncertainty and indecision. Denesh Ramdin has gone from No 4 to No 7 to out altogether. Brian Lara has juggled himself from No 6 to No 3 and back to No 4. Sewnarine Chattergoon, the little left-hand opener, was given two matches, his first at senior level. Run out in his first innings, he compiled an unbeaten half-century in his second only to be promptly replaced.

Dave Mohamed was the other ODI newcomer. He spun out three of the Zimbabwean boys who had obviously never had to work out the difference between a chinaman and a googly. But how much credibility could Joey Carew and his colleagues attach to such figures when assessing whether Mohamed should be in their XI against India.

Ian Bradshaw played the first two matches, was omitted from the next three and returned yesterday for the final two matches. A regular in the ODI team for two years now, his qualities were certainly well known. A few matches against Zimbabwe proved nothing that was not already known. So it was with everyone else, even Chattergoon and Mohammed, whose performances in February and March against England A were certainly of more relevance than those against this Zimbabwean team.

On this score, and given his regional record over the past two seasons, the selectors would have learned more about Richard Kelly, the Trinidad and Tobago allrounder, than about Bradshaw in the last two matches - or in the first two, or all, for that matter.

It is not that these past few weeks have been entirely useless. Runako Morton's promotion to open has been a wise shift, based on his inability to get away tidy spin bowling in the middle overs as was clear yesterday. Harbhajan, Yuvraj and the other Indian spinners are somewhat more versed in the demands of the one-day game than Prosper Utseya and teenager, Ryan Higgins.

The series also provided worrying confirmation of the initial signs in New Zealand that Ramdin's cricket has suddenly gone backwards. He is now missing chances he was snaffling up nine months ago in Sri Lanka and batting without the conviction that earned him vital runs in Sri Lanka and Australia. There is a presumption that, as a frail 20-year-old, he is feeling the pressure of the team's intensive training regime and the quantity of cricket he has had in the past year. Whatever the reasons, he has already proved his potential, and his temperament. He needs to be carefully handled.

Dwayne Smith remains a continuing concern. He owes his place in the team to the possibility that he will win a match or two with his fierce hitting but it is now his athleticism in the field and his improved medium-pace bowling that keep him in the XI. The selectors have given him every chance but their patience is wearing thin.

The most disturbing feature of the series has been the overall standard that has devalued international cricket. Zimbabwe, as enthusiastic as they are, do not merit the status. For their part, West Indies only once managed to complete the emphatic, ruthless victory that should have been their aim every match. It explains why they languish at No 8 on the ICC table.

In the fourth match at Bourda, they amassed their highest total in a home ODI, 333 for 6, then dismissed the two Zimbabwean openers in the first overs. Yet Zimbabwe could still score 251 for 7. In the sixth at the Queen's Park Oval yesterday, West Indies were 100 for 1 after 20 overs, on course for 300. Over the next 20 overs, they were confined to 75 for two more wickets and, in spite of Carlton Baugh's energy at the end, were still well short of what they should have got.

They will have to lift their intensity several notches against India or there will surely be a repeat of the whitewashes they suffered against South Africa and Pakistan last season.