Cozier On Cricket: One-Day Reality Finally Bites (4 October 1998)

4 October 1998

Cozier On Cricket: One-Day Reality Finally Bites

by Tony Cozier

It has taken an eternity for those who run West Indies cricket to recognise just what the one-day game is all about.

Just a year ago, while the rest of the world had long since been picking special teams and devising specific strategies to meet the peculiar demands of the abbreviated version, the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) deemed its own limited-overs tournament, the Red Stripe Bowl, so insignificant that it did not even despatch its selectors to watch.

When those selectors sought to differentiate between their side for the subsequent three Tests in Pakistan and that for two separate One-day tournaments - Pakistan Golden Jubilee and Sharjah Champions Trophy - they were told to make the same 16 serve both purposes.

As the others - even, belatedly, England - used white balls and black sightscreens and bedecked their teams in coloured uniforms for their domestic limited-overs tournament, the West Indies only came round to the change last year for the inaugural Red Stripe Bowl.

Traditionalism, more ingrained in cricket than in most sports and not always a bad thing, was one of the reasons for such an attitude.

Another was the phenomenal strength, in every department, of the West Indies teams under Clive Lloyd.

They persuaded a general opinion, understandable and expressed by one member of the current selection panel, Joey Carew, in these words: "Cricket is cricket.

"The rules may differ from the One-day internationals to Test cricket but the adjustment is not difficult for any top cricketer to make."

True, but it is only when you have a surfeit of top cricketers that adjustment is unnecessary.

For instance, a team reading Greenidge, Haynes, Richards, Kallicharran, Lloyd, Collis King, Deryck Murray, Roberts, Garner, Holding and Croft - which readers will immediately identify as the 1979 World Cup champions - needed little tinkering for Test conversion (only Gomes for King).

Later teams, lacking such quality in depth, certainly did.

So the thinking has gradually, very gradually, changed, as it had to.

The selectors, even Carew, now accept that a format that limits an innings to 50 overs and bowlers to ten overs, restricts field placing and debars bouncers, requires a different approach.

They belatedly set about sorting out the most adaptable side during the five One-day internationals against England last season, calling on 19 players, and have shown their hand with the 14 chosen for the Wills ICC Knockout tournament in Bangladesh later this month.

Now that the WICB accepts their presence is necessary, they will be paying special attention at the second Red Stripe Bowl that starts in Guyana and Jamaica on Tuesday.

Performances are certain to inform their judgment on the two tough, seven-match series against South Africa in South Africa and Australia in the Caribbean early in the new year that immediately precede the World Cup in England which the West Indies have not won since 1979.

On recent evidence, and following accepted practice, they will be seeking cricketers who are proficient in at least two of the three disciplines.

In choosing future teams, it is unlikely they will follow the example of their Barbadian counterparts by including two wicket-keepers and a bowler who can't bat and can't field.

And, in a game where the average margin of victory is 15 runs, fielding is as critical as batting and bowling.

Viv Richards' single-handed run outs of the Chappell brothers and Allan Turner were as influential in the West Indies' first World Cup triumph in 1975 as Lloyd's booming hundred.

The South Africans have based their success rate in One-day internationals on the speed, safe hands and athleticism of Jonty Rhodes and his colleagues.

When Keith Arthurton was recalled against England last season, his presence in the outfield was an immediate spark to the overall performance.

Neil McGarrell's three bulls-eye run outs on debut kept him in the squad for Bangladesh as much as his left-arm spin bowling.

For everyone seeking to catch the selectors' attention in the next few weeks, the objective is straightforward.

Show them you can bat, show them you can bowl but, above all, show them you can field.

They are, after all, now seeking specialists for this specialised form of the game.

Source :: The Barbados Nation (https://www.nationnews.com/)