Falling through the floor

Still shaking your head in disbelief? Why? Like you now following West Indies cricket or what?

Whether in times of plenty or in this prolonged guava season, long-standing fans of the regional team have come to appreciate the reality of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory - as occurred on Wednesday against Pakistan - as an unavoidable occupational hazard.

The only thing unique about that experience two days ago was the location, so now we can add the Sheikh Zayed Stadium in the Arabian desert emirate of Abu Dhabi to the list of venues where the Caribbean side somehow contrived to lose a match that was theirs for the taking.

But it has always been thus, especially in one-day internationals, even if the situation seems much worse now in the context of the lowest period ever in the history of West Indies cricket.

Indeed, if Jerome Taylor is the latest target for emotion-laden condemnation after conceding 17 runs off five balls in the last over of the match, he needs only consult with fellow-Jamaican Courtney Walsh for advice on how to cope with such a situation.

For it was Walsh, revered and respected for his great deeds and tireless efforts as a West Indian fast bowler for 17 years, who became the target of merciless regional vitriol after the first two matches of the 1987 World Cup in Pakistan.

Entrusted with bowling the final over against both England and Pakistan, when the opposition needed more than ten runs in each case for victory, he buckled under the pressure, effectively ending Caribbean hopes of even advancing to the semi-finals of the tournament.

To add insult to injury, Walsh opted not to run out tailender Saleem Jaffar for backing up too far in that final over, only for Abdul Qadir to smash a six a couple deliveries later, which sealed West Indies' fate.

I wonder if the man who will remain our leading wicket-taker in Test cricket for a long, long time still has the rug that was presented to him after that match by the Pakistani authorities as recognition of his sportsmanship in such a critical situation?

It must make for a great conversation piece, unless he dumped it a long time ago because it's not one of the memories he would wish to recall too often.

Yet experiences like that can be the real test of character to prove once and for all if someone has what it takes to withstand and eventually prevail more often than not in similar pressure situations. Walsh passed the test with flying colours and proved to be a match-winner many times over for West Indies when it seemed defeat was imminent (the one-run Test victory over Australia in Adelaide in 1993 comes immediately to mind, but there are several others).

Now, we wait to see if Taylor can rebound today from the pummelling under lights. At least his captain is in his corner, which must mean a lot to our most promising fast bowler of the current crop.

Like Vivian Richards 21 years ago, Chris Gayle quite correctly restated his faith in his "death" bowler at the post-match ceremony, for one bad performance cannot automatically erase the fact that Taylor has been our most consistent and effective fast bowler of the past 12 months.

Of course, that reality will be overlooked by many in the context of a team that continues to suffer humiliation and embarrassment at home and abroad. It's not as if Taylor is surrounded by fellow fast bowlers of the calibre of Curtly Ambrose, Ian Bishop, Patrick Patterson, Winston and Kenny Benjamin and Tony Gray who will ensure, more often than not, that West Indian dominance will be maintained if he occasionally falls short of the standards he has already set. But this is the depressing reality of Caribbean cricket today, and it can only be hoped that Taylor is in no way cowed by the Wednesday whipping and comes out firing on all cylinders, even if he is again handed the ball for the last over of the match with Pakistan threatening once more to pull off a minor miracle.

You know, in the midst of all this deepening gloom over West Indies cricket - on and off the field - there are moments that still make you wonder what could have been. Such a moment occurred in that first ODI of the three-match series when Xavier Marshall walked into a not-so-short delivery from fast-medium bowler Abdur Rauf and pulled it wide of mid-on for four.

It just seemed to be such an extraordinary stroke from a young player whose shot-making ability, as we saw against the Australians earlier this year, is phenomenal. Yet there is much more to batsmanship than sumptuous stroke play, and given the poisonous concoction of his own personal disciplinary issues (he failed a drug test and was kicked out of the Stanford Superstars training camp) and the chaotic and defeatist state of the West Indian game, what chance is there that a player who is yet to register a first-class hundred will ever achieve anything close to his full potential in the prevailing environment?

This is the challenge of being a follower of West Indies cricket in these troubled times. You see players of the ability of a Jerome Taylor and a Xavier Marshall and almost regret that they have come at a time when standards are falling through the floor.

Still, we watch and hope. Not expect, just hope.