Four days to rebound

London - It is not exactly Mission Impossible but Jimmy Adams, Roger Harper and Jeffrey Dujon have a job immediately ahead of them so tough it has proven beyond the capacity of all those who have previously been saddled with it.

Only six months in charge of the West Indies team, the captain and his coaches have four days to try to lift their players out of the trough of despair and disinterest that has gradually turned the tour of England into a familiar nightmare.

Unless they can somehow change the attitude before the fifth and final Test starts at the Oval on Thursday, the West Indies will collapse to another embarrassing defeat, the repercussions of which will extend beyond the surrender of the Wisden Trophy that has been theirs since 1973.

England lead 2-1 and require only a draw to clinch their first series over the West Indies since 1969.

It would leave West Indies, proud and unchallenged champions for 15 years not so long ago, firmly stuck in the lower reaches of world cricket, along with the likes of Zimbabwe and Bangladesh.

Even to the most optimistic West Indian, it is difficult to see how such an outcome can be avoided.

The effect of the crushing, unpre-cented two-day defeat in the fourth Test at Headingley nine days ago, more especially its all-out 61, was obvious in the four subsequent days at Taunton.

There, they were soundly trounced by Somerset, an ordinary county team whose only two Test players, Andy Caddick and Marcus Trescothik, were not even playing.

The problems were compounded by the injuries that kept Adams and Franklyn Rose out of the match, even after they were chosen, and eliminated Reon King during it, by the clear evidence that Shivnarine Chanderpaul's right forearm remains tender and, above all, by the sad bereavement that has carried Ramnaresh Sarwan back to Guyana, albeit temporarily.

It is strange, but true, how luck so often turns against teams that do not deserve it. And the West Indies have certainly deserved none of late.

They have progressively lost their focus, have neglected the concerted practice and training necessary for success and seem now resigned to their fate.

They have contrived to allow the superiority they established with their three-day, innings victory in the first Test and their substantial first innings lead in the second to evaporate.

It was painful, but instructive, listening to Somerset's captain, Jamie Cox, on a radio programme Friday night, berating the West Indies team his county has so humbled for their lackadascial, don't-carish attitude.

Cox is one of the many fine Australians in county cricket unable to break into the powerful Test team. He and his countrymen simply cannot understand or abide such slackness.

Neither can those who once made the West Indies strong and proud, like Sir Viv Richards and Michael Holding who have had the painful task of commenting on the series on radio and television.

Cox did not say it because he didn't have to. But the implication was obvious. Australia will have no pity on such backsliding when the West Indies venture there later this year.

It was staggering to learn that the West Indies did not have a single net practice session between their defeat at Headingley on the Friday and the start of the Somerset match on the Wednesday. The only workout was physical training on the Monday.

At just about the same time, a young golfer by the name of Tiger Woods was creating history by adding another major championship, the US PGA, to his collection.

He is as near perfect as any one who has ever played the sport has been yet he kept saying he still had to improve, and the only way to do it would be to practise.

Somehow, the current crop of West Indies cricket, all but one journeymen by comparison, seem to take the opposite view and even the exception lacks Woods' single-minded commitment.

It is not new. Indeed, the malaise has become endemic.

There have been signs of it for the better part of ten years now but the warning signals flashed brightest and loudest in the 1996 World Cup and the loss to the novices of Kenya.

They have become shriller with each year and it comes as no surprise that the situation has reached this sorry pass.

If, by some miracle, the Oval Test is won and Adams lifts the Wisden Trophy after all, it will not mask the problems that have again surfaced over the past couple of months as they have repeatedly done for so long on overseas tours.

The disheartening reality is that there is no quick fix and certainly not in the space of four days.

Tony Cozier is the Caribbean's most experienced cricket writer and broadcaster.