Gloomy Outlook (5 March 1999)

5 March 1999

Gloomy Outlook

Tony Cozier in Port-of-Spain

The weather over Port-of-Spain yesterday, matched the present mood of West Indies cricket.

The dark clouds that hovered over the northern range were as ominous as a Pat Rousseau Press conference, the downpours as frequent and dramatic as middle order batting collapses, the overcast as gloomy as the universal predictions for the series against Australia scheduled to start at the Queen's Park Oval, this morning.

Yet the climate, as changeable as a Carl Hooper performance, could be the boost the West Indies team needs.

Well below full strength, it is desperately trying to erase the recent trauma of the drubbing in South Africa and its chaotic aftermath. The rain has brought some hope - and not simply from the cynical, if not entirely unrealistic, point of view that the more time lost the less likelihood there is of a match lost.

Yesterday's conditions were similar to those prior to the Queen's Park Test between the teams four years ago when it poured on the eve of the match, forcing the ground staff to leave the covers on an already damp and grassy pitch all day and turning the contest into a lottery.

The pitch turned out to be a minefield for the fast bowlers and, clinically exploited by Curtly Ambrose, Courtney Walsh and Kenny Benjamin, yielded victory to the West Indies in less than three days by bundling out Australia for 128 and 105 to their own 136 and 98 for one.

This is a much drier and truer looking surface, being used for the first time in a Test since 1989. But there is a distinct grass covering and, with the continuing showers that are forecast, it is bound to retain the surrounding moisture.

Ambrose and Walsh are past masters at using the slightest bit of assistance and, in their advancing years, increasingly need it for effectiveness.

They are both returning for their first major match in six weeks following the rest required to repair fragile hamstring muscles damaged through age and overwork in South Africa. If the West Indies can bowl first and they can make early breaks in Australia's batting, it will provide an immediate filip to the collective spirit that even Dr Rudi Webster would have found impossible to achieve in his limited time.

In South Africa, Ambrose and Walsh did repeatedly take care of the upper order but lacked for meaningful backing. The Trinidadian, Merv Dillon, one of the support staff then, is chosen on his home ground now and is joined on debut by Pedro Collins, another in the growing list of young fast bowlers tried in recent years.

The 23-year-old Collins' is preferred to Reon King, in spite of King's impressive five for 79 return for the President's XI against the Australians last weekend, because his left-arm over-the-wicket style offers variety. The success of England's left-armer, Alan Mullally, in the recent Ashes series against Australia might have figured in the selection.

Collins has had two encouraging "A" team tours, of South Africa and of Bangladesh and India, and is most potent with the new ball, less so with the old, although, in his debut Test, he is unlikely to be given it before in preference to either Ambrose or Walsh.

The changing environment has also presented Australia, sure, strong and settled, with an unexpected quandary.

Steve Waugh, in his debut Test as Australia's 40th captain in succession to the much acclaimed Mark Taylor, had his mind set on putting both leg-spinners, the established Shane Warne and the new tyro Stuart MacGill, in the final eleven on the theory that the four best bowlers should play - and that includes them both.

He and his co-selectors - vice-captain Warne among them - might be having second thoughts if another gray, rainy day greets them at Queen's Park this morning and the demands are for a third fast bowler such as the swinger Adam Dale.

Worrying about who to drop out is always a satisfying situation. Who to put in is altogether more bothersome and the West Indies have had to hunt around for middle order replacements for the steadfast Shivnarine Chanderpaul, out until the second Test with torn ligaments in his shoulder, and Carl Hooper, still in far-off Adelaide where he and his Australian wife are tending their seriously ill infant son.

They decided yesterday to fill in with Roland Holder, the 31-year-old right-hander with the experience of ten Tests and eight overseas tours, and Dave Joseph, the 29-year-old Antiguan whose debut Test comes in his tenth season of first-class cricket, leaving Phil Simmons in the unaccustomed position of 12th man.

There is yet another opening pair, the reinstated Sherwin Campbell and his new opening partner Suruj Ragoonath, and a new No. 6, the left-hander Jimmy Adams who, like Holder and Campbell, is back after almost a year.

All will be on trial, and under pressure, but none more so than captain Brian Lara. He only got the clearance yesterday, on the chipped bone just above his right wrist, a legacy of his South African nightmare, and goes into the match critically short of practice.

In Chanderpaul's absence, he must bat where he should always bat, No. 3, and will resume his confrontation with Glenn McGrath, as fast, penetrative and clever a fast bowler as Allan Donald who so unsettled him in South Africa. In the previous series in Australia two years ago, McGrath dismissed Lara cheaply five times in his first six innings and has openly and aggressively spoken of getting at him again, much as heavyweight boxers do before one of Don King's promotions.

As if all that was not enough, Lara's captaincy is on the line with the further burden of a ridiculous two-match probation, placed on him by a weak-kneed board that could not bring itself to dismiss him as captain as it should have.

There will be the support and sympathy of his home fans on his home ground, an encouraging consideration. But he will do well to come through it all unscathed for such challenges demand incredible will power and determination, quite apart from natural talent.

If he does, say, with his first hundred in 14 Tests, and his first at Queen's Park, we will know all is not lost for Lara or for the West Indies just yet.

In the meantime, pray for more rain.

West Indies: B.C.Lara (captain), S.L.Campbell, S.Ragoonath, R.I.C.Holder, D.R.E.Joseph, J.C.Adams, R.D.Jacobs, C.E.L.Ambrose, M.Dillon, P.D.Collins, C.A.Walsh. 12th man: P.V.Simmons

Australia (from): S.R.Waugh (captain), M.J.Slater, M.T.G.Elliott, J.L.Langer, M.E.Waugh, G.S.Blewett, R.T.Ponting, I.A.Healy, S.K.Warne, A.C.Dale, S.C.G.MacGill, J.N.Gillespie, G.D.McGrath.

Umpires: E.A.Nicholls (West Indies), P.Willey (England).

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