Carew, Gray unhappy with West Indies (13 January 1999)

13 January 1999

Carew, Gray unhappy with West Indies

By Garth Wattley

Joey Carew says it's inexperience and Anthony Gray advises introspection.

While the current West Indies selector and the national cricket coach say he can't be asked to shoulder all of the blame, both raise questions about Brian Lara's captaincy during the South African series gone sour.

The Lara-led Caribbean side currently trail Hansie Cronje's team 0-4 in the five-match series and the possibility of a "whitewash" for the once all-conquering Windies is now being hotly discussed all over the region.

Looking at the way the series has gone, both Carew and Gray feel poor tactics have led to tears.

"On reflection," Carew told the Express, "they (South Africa) won the Third and Fourth Test matches because they definitely played better than us. But the First and Second could have gone either way. And I feel that Brian's inexperience in both matches was the cause of our not winning."

Qualifying the statement, Carew said, "It is not that he is not a good captain. But there were occasions when he could have paid a little more respect to the runs scored by the opposition. He paid very dearly for the runs he allowed to pass through third man."

Gray agreed, adding that "in the early Test matches, he really let South Africa off the hook." "Some of the field-placing," he noted, "was illogical."

"But," says the former Trinidad and Tobago and West Indies paceman, "I don't think all the blame should be placed on Lara. We have to look at the whole picture."

That "picture" includes the steady decline of the Caribbean game over the last five years.

"Basically I think it (the position in the Test series) is a clear reflection of the state of WI cricket. I don't think West Indies have kept up the quality of cricket that needs to be kept up to deal with sides like South Africa and Australia."

As in the case of the captain, both Gray and Carew shied away from condemnation of The Management team of tour manager Clive Lloyd and coach Malcolm Marshall.

Said Gray: "They understand up to a level what is required. They can work with players technically. But the atmosphere and mood of Test cricket has changed."

The local coach suggests that the regional approach to the game on and off the field needs an overhaul. The regional tournament, for instance, does not prepare the players for Test cricket like it used to because the level and quality of cricket is not the same as when Gordon Greenidge came up against Michael Holding."

Returning to the immediate problem in South Africa, Carew identified it as "attitude and aptitude." "The onus is on the individual too, not only on the coaches. If he is not concentrating for the entire day, he has to go and train harder, both mentally and physically to be able to acquire that attribute."

Despite the current situation, Carew is hopeful of some kind of turnaround against Mark Taylor's Australians come March.

"A lot of good things are going to rub off on the players from South Africa. You must learn from playing against a team that is so efficient," he said.

However, according to Gray, a turnaround will only come with the right type of planning.

"We have to re-group, have a small camp, make assessments of where we went wrong and make assessments of what we need to put right for the Australian tour," he said.

But perhaps the key to a short-term recovery, the key to stopping the haemorrhage, says the coach, is the captain.

"He needs to understand that the talent God gave him is not (just) going to maintain progress. He has to develop the right attitudes of a professional. He has to use this tour as Clive Lloyd did in 1976 to build him. "And then," he ends emphatically, "he can come through."

Source :: The Trinidad Express (https://www.trinidad.net/express/)