Insight to a cricket team - interview with West Indies captain Jimmy Adams

Jimmy Adams, the present captain of the West Indies cricket team, has some special qualities for someone put into the important and sometimes unenviable position. He is generally "up front", easy to talk to, and, when relaxed, very expressive, astute, demonstrative and highly philosophical.

Here is my recent interview with him, as he acted as 12th man at Somerset, not taking any chances with his injured finger, just before the vital final Test at the Kennington Oval starting on Thursday.

Colin Croft (CC): Even before we talk about the Fifth Test, what is your overall view of what has gone on so far on this cricket tour?

Jimmy Adams (JA): I think, in general, we have played inconsistent cricket. We have played good cricket in parts, which means that the opposite is true as well. I think that at the end of the day, we can sit down and analyze the 'hows', the 'whys' and the 'wherefores' as to why this has happened.

The bottom line, to this point, is that we have not been able to put that 'run' together. I think that this is something, irrespective of the outcome of the last Test, that would be my opinion of the tour, since we only have two weeks left. We have to sit down to analyze why we could not come up with consistent performances. Why was it only in patches?

CC: Firstly, you talk about the team needing consistency. My assessment is that this West Indies team performs at the extremes, 398 and 438 in two innings, then 54 and 61 in another two. To me, that is extremes, not a lack of consistency.

JA: I would not use the word "extremes", but I understand your point. For me that still confirms that we are playing inconsistent cricket. In the Caribbean recently, we have shown that we are capable of producing something approaching consistent cricket. What happens, and continues to happen, on an overseas tour? Is it, being away from home, a question of focus? Is it a question of conditions? Is it a question of tiredness? These are questions which will have to be put on the table at some time and be dealt with one by one. If we are saying that, long term, we are looking to carry our game to the highest level, then we are going to have to look at these questions in depth. I am not prepared to go into that aspect here, but we will have to look into these things.

CC: Let us look at this tour, though. You started with a win here, which was something that had not happened in New Zealand, nor in South Africa, nor in Pakistan. At least, a positive start was achieved here, at Edgbaston.

JA: We had a start, yes, but if my memory serves me correctly, I still maintain, and have always maintained, that there is a lot of work to be done. There are times, even when we get the result we want, I still have to sit down and analyze; "did 'X' go well, did 'Y' go well, did 'Z' go well?" If it was stacked against another team, would we have been able to get away with doing less well than we should have? I constantly have to evaluate it that way. If you do not, and you accept a win simply as a win, then you can run into serious problems.

CC: Individually, and as a team, the personnel should know, honestly, where their game lies. How important, influential and inspirational is your captaincy to the team for them to perform properly and consistently?

JA: That is a good question! I have to sit down and (a) look back at the decisions that I made; (b) how I "carried myself" in making these decisions; (c) ask what message that I was trying to put across to the team at practice sessions; (d) ask whether I am sure that the message is getting through. On many occasions, it might not be that the message is wrong. It might just be that those of us trying to get the message across have not communicated well enough.

One of the issues that bothers me is wondering (if) what you are communicating is actually being properly received. Perhaps the tactical preparations, the practice sessions; does everyone understand, has everyone bought into the idea that "well, this is as important to me, and the team, as the captain is trying to explain to me that it is." I have to look at my communication skills as well.

CC: You, as captain, the manager and the coach, but especially you, as probably the inspirational leader, will have to take either the kudos or the criticisms?

JA: I agree with you 100% and this is why I would say that the overall evaluations begin "at home", so to speak, with me first.

CC: The present now, along with some of the future. In the last Test match, the West Indies were again bowled out for less that 100 to lose the game. There is one Test ahead of you, which the coach, Roger Harper, suggests bears a lot on history and all of the rest of that. How do you, as a captain, and as a team, approach that game, having just been bowled out for 61 at Leeds and 54 at Lord's?

JA: I can answer that in a general sense, without being technically specific. I think that a lot of what the basic things in our game, which have served us well over the last four months, have been ignored on this tour. I agree that this last Test match carries a lot of significance, for a lot of different reasons.

However, it is the process between now and the game, and then during the game, that is of paramount importance to me right now, getting ourselves prepared mentally, and physically, to go out there over five days and implement consistent, basic cricket, not for ten minutes, not for a session or two, or even a day, but for five days. Therein I feel lies the answer to success.

That process started the minute the last Test finished at Leeds, sitting down and evaluating what happened. Do we still believe in that process that has worked for us in the past? Do we still believe in it enough to stick to it for the duration of a Test match?

CC: Looking at the team from the start of the series to now, do you suggest that there has been some improvement, a lack of improvement, perhaps not sufficient improvement?

JA: In some crucial areas, like consistency, there has not been the improvement that we had anticipated. We are not as consistent as we should be, or, as we have shown in the Caribbean, that we can be.

CC: At Leeds the team was accused of lacking technique or application. In my mind, these are not the same thing.

JA: I am a little bit sceptical of going down "the technique road", as we use the same technique whether we are making nearly 400 runs or less than 100. We made large totals in conditions at Edgbaston which were not supposed to be good for batting, and at Old Trafford, where the ball was supposed to swing a lot, not very conducive to batting.

I would not discount that. My opinion, if it comes to application, is that I would still come back to the word consistency. We are talking about competing with the best teams in the world. What the best teams in the cricket world do is no different from what we do, but it is just that we do it in patches. That is the bottom line. We simply need to do the basics well, day in, day out. That might involve many things, that, at this point in time, on overseas tours, we are not comfortable doing.

CC: I think that Brian Lara, when he was captain, also had some reference to that situation too, in South Africa. He suggested that the West Indies Cricket Board and on a wider scale, cricket in the Caribbean, will have to look at the preparation for these tours.

JA: That is something that we have not paid enough attention to in the past. Here is a scenario. Let us forget this present West Indies tour of England for a moment. The team came back from New Zealand (after losing every game there), and there was so much "hoo-ha", that, for the first time, a decision was made to assemble a squad, and keep them together for two weeks before the next series (against Zimbabwe and Pakistan). That had never happened before. That is how we in the Caribbean considered our cricket to be at the time. Somehow, it necessitated a lot of new things, one of which was a specific preparation period.

Now, maybe someone could answer this question. Why is it that we are going to be playing the Red Stripe Bowl, (the West Indies regional one-day competition), up until one day before we leave for Australia (November - later this year)? That makes no sense. Australia, for me, is the best cricket team in the world, and there is a possibility that we will be going down there without some of the players that we have here with us now, through retirements and so forth.

I would have thought that if the preparation period played a big part in our success in the Caribbean, then some preparation time should have been given before the tour of Australia. Why would you then assemble a bunch of players and just send them to Australia and suggest to them that they should just "go and play good cricket."

CC: Are you then asking, or perhaps sending a message to the West Indies Cricket Board, as to say "What are you doing to us, or for us, here?"

JA: No, but I will use the word that I have grown to love in the last five months or so. That word is "consistency." If we are asking players for an acceptable level of consistency, then I believe that consistency has to go throughout the entire organization. That is the point that I am trying to make. It is not consistent to me, after coming back from New Zealand, that we all agree that a shake-up is needed, bring in a two week camp for the first time, sports specialist, psychologist etc., for a home series, where, traditionally, we have tended to play better cricket than we have done overseas.

Now, we are going to face what is potentially the best team in the world, just after a one-day tournament in the Caribbean. Consistency has to run right through an organization. Those who are asking for consistency from our performances, who are in charge of our cricket, have got to have some level of consistency themselves.

I do not know what the financial ramifications are of switching the Red Stripe Bowl to what I would term a more convenient date. I do consider it very inconvenient to be going to Australia without proper preparations if they (the West Indies cricket authorities) are telling me that the success of the tour of Australia is paramount. No one can tell me that the success on that tour is paramount if they (the WICB) arrange the Red Stripe Bowl one-day competition in the manner it has been arranged, just before we leave for Australia. That is a very inconsistent statement.

CC: Just a final question on this small diversion. Does it suggest to you, as indeed it suggests to me, that the WICB appears to be a bit more concerned with the commercial and financial spin of things than perhaps having the team prepared properly for the Australian tour?

JA: I will not say what 'appears to be". I will stand behind the statement, that, to me, it seems very inconsistent if you claim that the tour of Australia is of great significance, and taking into consideration the effect that was evident from the preparation that we had for the home series, that we could not find time to prepare properly for a series against the best international cricket team in world cricket.

CC: Why do you think that the West Indies senior cricket team has had such a bad time on overseas tours over the last four years or so?

JA: If I had the answer to that question, I would be "raking it in." I will put up my hand now and tell you that we are still searching for the answers.

CC: Back to this current tour now. Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh have been way above the others in the bowling department, even though they are the oldest guys on the team. It has been suggested that not only do they come from the old school of professionalism, but the pride and endeavour is still in their lives, while it is maybe not altogether there for some of the rest of the guys around the cricket team.

JA: I cannot say that I agree with that statement at all. That has been said to me several times on this tour and I do not agree with it. I do not think there is anyone on this team who do not have equal pride in what we are trying to achieve. I do not think that any of our guys go out there to perform below the standards they would like to see effected in their game. For whatever reasons, that has not always happened.

What Ambrose and Walsh have done consistently, even in recent times when we have not been doing so well on overseas tours, is to show every one of us, in the team or squad, that it is not impossible to be a consistent performer away from home.

CC: You see, captain, I do not think that the supporters are too concerned about the West Indies, as you have also said, building a team, and sometimes losing in the process. People are more concerned, not at the fact that the team is losing, as to "how" that is taking place. It is becoming something of an embarrassment.

JA: I agree with you. The question that I ask myself, the question that I dwell on a lot, is this. This is the same core group, the same players who were assembled in the Caribbean, who could defend 100 runs against Zimbabwe, who fought out a situation, day in and day out, against a team, Pakistan, which some said were better than us, whether it was so or not. These players have shown that ability to come good. We had a good build up to the first Test. Yet that same group cannot sustain that performance for three months on an overseas tour. Why?

Every Test match, and every one day game, in the Caribbean, was some kind of test, really, as I cannot remember one game that we won hands down. We had what I considered was a great build up for the Test series, in terms of the county games, we won that first Test match so convincingly. Unlike on other tours when we started badly, we started well here, and we still could not sustain it. We still cannot get to that level of consistency that we have been looking for. Yet this is the same core group that had gone through the Caribbean series.

CC: Then, in my mind, if the team is physically equipped, as they were to do well in the Caribbean, and then tour with those same physical attributes, but have very much less positive results overseas than is achieved in the Caribbean, then there must be something else wrong. What is that?

JA: Throw anything into the pot, because I am listening. (smile)

CC: Dr. Rudi Webster, the team's psychologist? It has been suggested that his presence made a difference in the Caribbean. Why is he not here on tour with the team? At least in the Caribbean, you have the support of the crowd.

JA: That decision was made above our heads. To repeat the "why", I would have preferred to be in a position where I fully understood the decision. I do not fully understand that decision, so I could not justify it with an answer or a reason.

CC: The "why" does not matter. The main question is this: Do you think that Dr. Webster should have been here on this tour? Do you think that the players would have benefitted from his presence, or someone of his practice?

JA: I cannot answer that question in this medium right now. I think that when you talk about consistency, what is done on the field reflects what is carried out, the policies, off the field. I cannot go down this road. You are talking about a policy decision which was taken at WIC Board level.

CC: With this same core of players, having beaten both Pakistan and Zimbabwe in the Caribbean, and having won the first Test match here, it has also been suggested that complacency set in on the team. Comment?

JA: No comment.

CC: The team lost at Lord's, then a great come-back at Old Trafford, coming out of that Test with positives. What happened at Leeds? It is like a roller coaster. One minute the team is up, the next it is down. The average supporter does not understand that.

JA: I think about this from two angles. Firstly, the players that we have here in England, a core group who will be involved in international cricket for some time to come, while secondly, I also look at it from a long term perspective. What are we doing if we have identified that we are very inconsistent away from home, if along the way we can identify what is causing our problem? What are we doing to make sure that these problems might be addressed in the Caribbean, to players at a very much earlier age?

CC: Which brings me to my next question. The West Indies Under 15 team just won the Under 15 World Cup. There was no real coverage in the Caribbean, especially when it is agreed that more exposure and coverage is needed for the young to be encouraged to play cricket. What is your view on that?

JA: I would say having watched the game, that every Caribbean person would have watched the game, had it been available to them. Even if they had not won, just to see these kids at Lord's in a final would have served the purpose. I think that it would have been a wonderful spectacle and a source of encouragement for the youth of the Caribbean.

CC: The second part of that question was this. Now that they have won the Under 15 World Cup, what is next for those guys? What should we expect from them and what are they to be exposed to now?

JA: I think that there are certain aspects about the game that will never change, regardless of how old these guys are. At this stage of their lives, they should be about ready to start learning not only about the technical aspects of the game, but the mental side too. This has been as aspect of our cricket which has been left to "Lady Luck" for too long. She has been very good to some of us over the years. Ultimately, though, if you leave things to luck and chance, the odds will eventually start to beat us.

I do not think that the core group of 15-16-17 year olds, and I speak from the perspective of previously being a youth representative from Jamaica, that the youth should be entrusted to the individual Caribbean territories. Many may be upset with that, but it is now time to take the "cream" of the youth and ensure certain standards, starting now, for the "A" team and the Test team. It should not be left to the individual countries to conjure up their individual tricks. That should be a specific, collective effort.

Australia did not send a team to the Under 15 World Cup. They said that they did not have a performance-based competition for selection at that age. The Australians did not see it having a direct bearing on their international structure. It might sound like a harsh call, but they develop their youth into the best Test and international cricketers that they can be, as near adults and adults. They feel that an Under 15 competition will not help that objective.

CC: The West Indies, unlike Australia, have very little sponsored cricket. The West Indies cannot afford to think that way, as we do not have the Australian structure.

JA: I do not know if the two statements are complementary. As a Caribbean Journalist, what is the long term plan for our youth? What is the mission statement for the West Indies Cricket Board as regards cricket? We talk about cricket being the cohesive element of the Caribbean. What standard of cricket will bring that cohesion? We are hoping, but could you, or anyone tell me, what has been said, or written anywhere to produce the teams we should have?

CC: Back to the present again. Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh are not going to be around again after this tour. How do you see the team reacting, or even evolving, or even Caribbean cricket, recovering from such a loss?

JA: I do not know what will happen. I can tell you what I hope will happen. I would hope that all involved, the players, the WICB, the individual territories, etc., would see this present period, this so-called development period, as probably one of the most challenging periods ever to face West Indies cricket. Everyone will commit themselves to facing these challenges in the best way possible.

That might sound "good", but, as someone who has played in the region for a few years, I would like to see us going beyond "the talking stage." In other words, tell me of a plan, some sort of map as to how things will go for a 15-year-old who has just won a Youth World Cup Final at Lord's. How are the WICB, the people in charge, intending to turn him, and people like him, into the next Curtly Ambrose? Show me and the rest of the cricket fraternity, step by step, how people like him will go from level to higher level with continuing success over the next seven years or so. Until that is done, it is almost impossible to get everyone to buy into the idea of what is planned.

CC: The last intake the senior team would have had would include perhaps Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Wavell Hinds, Chris Gayle etc., and they came through the system, Under 19, "A" team etc, but again, they came purely by accident; yes or no? There was no real plan for them getting there. We have got to stop doing that, do you not think?

JA: I agree. I made a statement earlier that it is all well and good for Lady Luck to shine on us, but if we keep depending on her, at some time, the odds will beat us.

CC: Let us focus on the team's batsmen for a moment.

JA: At least we have a few back-up bowlers. We have no back-up batsmen. The level of batsmanship continues to be inconsistent. We have used an approach here that we have seen work in the past, but for whatever reason, it is not working consistently here on this tour.

CC: Finally, this is a question for you personally. This is the first time that you have captained a senior West Indies cricket team overseas. How has this been for you generally, and how do you take the stuff that has been happening recently? The loss at Lord's, when the West Indies were celebrating so many anniversaries there, and then the last one at Leeds. How do you cope with that? What do you perceive the Oval to bring, personally and collectively, and the history of playing against England? What is the team's general attitude to the performances of the English cricket team?

JA: Even though I am not in the business of predicting results, I am looking, doing everything in my power, for a Test win for us at the Oval. I cannot put it any simpler than that. Everything, after the game at Leeds, culminates at the Oval. Everything has to be geared to achieving a win at the Oval.

That win will come, in my opinion, and in the opinion of the members of the squad, if we go back to the first principles of cricket, keeping everything simple, playing the basics. We need batting partnerships down the line, an appreciation for playing percentage cricket. At Edgbaston, where we won, we identified things that we did not do well. When we look back at that game, we can still identify areas we do not want to repeat.

Someone once said that the best way to deal with a bad situation is to treat winning and losing the same way. If we are trying to suggest something, consistency, then we have got to practice it, and that simply means that each individual, including me, has got to be as consistent as can be possible, on and off the field.

We feel, in a general sense, that the English team, and the players collectively, have been more consistent than we have been. Not that we are incapable of matching that consistency, because we are. I do not separate personal performances from a team's performances, as when we beat England, we beat a team, not an individual. In the Test matches that they have won, they have played more consistent cricket than we have, from the start of the game until the end.

CC: Thank you very much.