Lara strains at another gnat (14 January 1999)

14 January 1999

Lara strains at another gnat

By Tony Cozier

JOHANNESBURG - The signs that lead to Test cricket's rare and ultimate humiliation - the 5-0 drubbing - always become progressively more obvious as the series progresses.

The West Indies have inflicted it on opponents often enough in recent memory to have recognised them at a glance over the past two months - a rash of injuries, selectorial panic, failure by key individuals, a growing sense of inferiority and helplessness, rumours of internal dissent, doubts over the captaincy.

Brian Lara's team in South Africa has mirrored the England of Ian Botham and David Gower in the 1980s that suffered at the hands of those, ironically, led by the current manager, Clive Lloyd.

Nor is there much to raise hopes that they can avoid the first such clean sweep in West Indies' history in the fifth and final Test, starting at Centurion Park, Pretoria, tomorrow.

To the many woes that have overwhelmed the team, Lara has identified yet another distraction to sidetrack his efforts, and those of the team management, to inspire his players for the final challenge.

"It has been a difficult situation because, for the first time, the selectors have named a One-Day squad while the Test series is still on the go," he said yesterday.

"Some of the guys who are here for the Test series are not going to be here for the One-Dayers and this, psychologically, will have a negative effect on them."

"We've experienced this and we've had to tell those guys to treat it as a learning experience and to try as hard as possible to get back into the squad again."

Merv Dillon and Stuart Williams are two of the four being replaced who are certain to play in the Test. On every count, both deserve to have remained on and Lara must hope the lure of a recall against Australia in the Caribbean and a place in the World Cup will be sufficient panacea for their disappointment.

While the development was unfortunate, it was also unavoidable. This is the first West Indies tour structured so that the Tests and One-Day Internationals are separate, an arrangement that will become the norm in future.

England also made changes from one form of the game to the next in the current Ashes series in Australia and it certainly had no effect on their morale in the last two Tests when they played their best cricket of the series.

There are other problems to concern Lara.

Once more, the West Indies are most likely to be without one of their two great bowlers, this time Curtly Ambrose.

The burden of too much intense cricket has been increasingly evident in his body language and he went down with the identical hamstring muscle strain in the fourth Test last week that left his veteran partner, Courtney Walsh, writhing in pain in the closing stages of the third.

Walsh's has had two weeks to mend and three days of workouts in the nets have persuaded him that he is ready to return for his 106th Test.

Typically, Ambrose has made a courageous effort to join him, working out in the nets over the past two days, but it would be foolhardy to take a gamble on a vital 35-year-old muscle that would jeopardise his already limited future should it backfire.

Instead, Reon King, the impressive 23-year-old Guyanese, will be obliged to fill the breach for his Test debut 24 hours after flying in this morning, along with the three other replacements for the one-day series: Keith Arthurton, Keith Semple and Neil McGarrell.

It is hardly the ideal preparation, and somebody should publicly explain why the team management's pleas to get him to South Africa earlier were denied.

At least, he should be match fit after the "A" team tour of India and his involvement in the Guyana trials - and he has experience of Centurion Park on last season's "A" team tour of South Africa.

He would be the 17th player used by the West Indies in the series. South Africa, whose winning fourth Test XI will be unchanged now that fast bowler Allan Donald has been declared fit, have called on 13. That statistic alone tells a story.

Lara is also adamant that there will be yet another new West Indies opening pair, the fifth for the series, with Daren Ganga moving up from No. 6 the day after his 20th birthday to partner Philo Wallace, with Williams at No. 6.

Ganga has shaped promisingly on a tour for which he was chosen purely for the experience. In four innings in the previous two Tests, he has never seemed out of place and has batted five hours all told.

But it is a herculean challenge for a fledgling cricketer against Donald and Shaun Pollock, as penetrative a new-ball Test attack as there is at present.

With the decision to keep him on for the One-Day Internationals, young Ganga finds himself with so much on his plate it could spoil his appetite for the game at the highest level.

The way things are now, West Indies cricket cannot afford to spoil one of its best prospects who needs to be carefully nursed.

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