Garth Wattley: Review of Trinidad and Tobago's Red Stripe season (1 Jun 1997)

1 June 1997

Bandaids on bullet wounds

Garth Wattley

With Sri Lanka due to arrive in the Caribbean today for a brief one-month tour, it is a time for stocktaking. Trinidad and Tobago Cricket Board of Control president Alloy Lequay has started the ball rolling with his comments in the Express in the middle of last week. GARTH WATTLEY seeks to advance the game by assessing what has happened to the local team in the just completed Red Stripe season.

THE last rites of the Trinidad and Tobago second innings had not yet been performed. But even as the virtual unknown, the Leewards' Mickey Mills was encountering token resistance from the home team's batsmen at the Queen's Park Oval, the questions should have come thick and fast for those who run national cricket.

Why for instance, in 10 years of Red Stripe Cup action, has a team privileged to call on Brian Lara, Ian Bishop, Phillip Simmons, Rajindra Dhanraj, David Williams and, for a time, Gus Logie, not once been regional champions?

And why especially has a team, good enough to have been runners-up three times in the last six years-1991, 1994, 1996-not earned the coveted "Stripe"?

Which should bring the minds back to 1997. When Mills shattered Mervyn Dillon's stumps to end the match, it brought to a finish another season gone sour for the local team. In the ten-lap race to determine the top Caribbean unit, T&T sputtered over the line in fourth, having blown an engine in the last turn. The repeated instances of "engine failure" this season must concern captain Brian Lara and the national selectors. For the phenomenon is not new. Inconsistency, the inability to deliver the goods on a regular basis, has repeatedly hamstrung national teams over the last decade. Last year, the T&T side with Phil Simmons at the helm, seemed to have the problem licked until they succumbed to the Leewards in the one-off Red Stripe final.

However, over the five-month, ten-match 1997 season, the shortcomings have been magnified. The figures lay bare the problem. The home record especially. T&T won only three matches, two of them against the bottom team, Windward Islands and the other against Jamaica. But just one of those victories came at home. And in the four other matches played on home soil, two of them-versus new champions Barbados and Jamaica-were lost on first innings, while the Leewards game was lost outright. On the road, some ground was recovered-the Windwards were beaten by ten wickets and Jamaica, quite dramatically, by 45 runs-but not enough. In his assessment of the season, skipper Lara identified factors that had affected his side's fortunes.

"(The West Indies players') missing the early part of the season, and the absence of Dhanraj for the majority of the season and Phil Simmons and David Williams for the crucial match against Barbados definitely hampered our chances of winning this year's tournament," the captain had said before the final match.

To a degree, he was right. Even though the team under Richard Smith began with a win, it missed the influence of Lara, Bishop and Simmons. And the campaign lost important momentum with the defeat at Kensington Oval in the crucial second game. Tidy leg-spinner Dinanath Ramnarine with 39 wickets (average 21.74) and transformed fast bowler Dillon with 32 (28.71) in his eventful debut first-class season, carried the bowling admirably. And they got good support from Bishop (26 at 21.53) when he became available. But the T&T attack could have done with just the psychological edge the prolonged presence of Dhanraj, the man who took a record 48 regional wickets last season, would have provided.

Had Danny been able to add 15 or so wickets more to his final haul of 18, second place at least may have been assured. Simmons' injury-enforced absence for the last three matches also did not help the cause.

Whereas in '96 he had been the leading man, his 641 runs carving a path to the final, the T&T vice-captain was but a bit player this time, playing in just four matches. His infectious enthusiasm was also conspicuously absent nearing the end when keeping focus was a challenge. The several instances of injury and unavailability did not make for a settled team.

Only once during the season did T&T field the same side twice. And in all, the selectors called on 21 players, giving debuts to four-Dillon, Darren Ganga, Armanath Basdeo and Dennis Rampersad. This latter statistic is perhaps key to an understanding of the season's showing.

A chain is as strong as its weakest link so even the presence of one or two brilliant elements in the T&T chain could not save it. The stats again.

Of the 11 specialist batsmen on show, only three averaged 40 or more-the opener Suruj Ragoonath (625 runs, 56.81), Lara (454, 45.40) and Simmons (200, 40.00). The next best man is evergreen wicketkeeper David Williams who posted 359 runs at 32.63, while at number six is fast bowler Bishop at 24.80! The eloquence of these figures is enough.

The situation at the top of the order is equally instructive. Some seven different opening partnerships were tried in the ten games, beginning with Andre Lawrence and Anil Balliram and ending with Ragoonath and the converted opener Ganga. This pairing which came together half-way through the season produced two stands of over 50 and one over 40, while Ganga and Lincoln Roberts posted one half-century stand. But the next best effort was 18!. Little wonder then that the local team often had to count on lower-order heroics-like Bishop's century against Barbados-to take some of the shame out of its collective face.

Inconsistency, as has been said, is not new. But the figures speak of an almost chronic inefficiency, persistent mediocrity if one is to be frank. In truth, the local team just did not have the depth to sustain a championship challenge.

Cricket Board president Alloy Lequay has pointed the finger at the untidy club structure as the source of the problem. And, to a point, he is certainly right.

If inner discipline and deep-down desire are not nurtured on the small stages, how can we expect to see them on the bigger ones? It is no accident that, say, a Lincoln Roberts-a player of some natural ability-can turn that talent into nothing more than an average of 26. But club structure alone cannot be the reason why so many cricketers of first-class standard barely make the grade at catching and fielding. It does not explain why, when Williams was unavailable, there was no wicketkeeper suitably groomed to take his place.

If the quest for that elusive stripe is to be soon over, something must be done to rescue what is fast becoming a lost generation of players. The methods of preparing teams needs revamping, for instance. National prospects-the Zaheer Alis, Darren Gangas and Imran Jans of the day-must not be left solely to their own devices. And in future, we should not leave it to a foreign eye to spot and hone potential local gems as was the case with Dillon.

It is time for some personalised attention, time for coaches to be assigned specifically to selected talent. Time for knowledgeable men to track and chart the progress of national prospects-all year round!

Preparation must be serious, not seasonal. It's time in short, to develop an integrated structure, one that not only brings players through the system, but that prepares them completely for the next stage.

Like the South Africanswe need to have a programme geared toward the specific needs of the youngsters. For some of those who have been long enough in the game, the time for salvation may be past. But no one will be saved by putting bandaids on bullet wounds. Only major surgery will enable the talented youngsters to survive. And thrive. Perhaps then the patient will begin to be strong enough for Mr Lequay to call off the search for that missing stripe.

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