Problems over and team united, says Chanderpaul
There were fears of a disruptive backlash from the upheavals that have split West Indies cricket and cricketers over the past year but they do not appear to have unduly bothered Shivnarine Chanderpaul
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"To have everybody back is a big boost," Chanderpaul said on Wednesday on the eve of the opening match of their Australian tour for which players who pulled out of the previous series in Sri Lanka have returned. "The guys have got over all the problems and we're now trying to pull together and move in the same direction. Everybody wants to help each other and that's all you can ask."
Such harmony did not seem possible when ten of the 13 originally chosen for the Sri Lanka tour last July withdrew over long running disagreement between the West Indies Players' Association (WIPA) and the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) over two clauses in the match/tour contract. It left Chanderpaul to lead a team mostly comprising novice replacements and facing criticism from WIPA president and chief executive Dinanath Ramnarine. "It's rather unfortunate to have the players making a principled stand and the captain of that side going in a different direction," Ramnarine said at the time. "It tells a story."
With the impasse now turned over for mediation to the ICC and the Federation of International Cricketers' Association (FICA), those players are back and, according to Chanderpaul, "trying to pull together and move in the same direction".
"I just think the guys wanted to play cricket and they decided they would put everything aside and play cricket," he said. "They said we'll forget about these things and let others deal with them in a different way and sort them out. I don't think anybody is putting his mind on that right now. Everybody just wants to play the cricket."
These are early days and early signs of team unity have been encouraging at the tough practice sessions and during the off-duty, fun day at Brisbane's Water World on Tuesday. The strains in relationships are sure to surface once the battle against Australia commences. It is then that the leadership of Chanderpaul, Bennett King, the coach, and Tony Howard, the manager, will be tested.
One question to Chanderpaul from the media yesterday concerned his style of captaincy. "I'm a person who goes out there and tries to get the job done," he responded. "I go and talk to them [players] when I find we're straying a bit [from the game plan] and try to help them as much as I can."
As his predecessor, Brian Lara, observed in an interview at a charity dinner in Sydney last week, the problems for West Indies captains are more off the field than on it. Lara, who had two troubled stints at the helm, said he had told Shaun Pollock and Graeme Smith, who led the respective World teams in the recent Super Series against Australia, that "they now have a little understanding of what it is like to captain a team whose players come from different countries. In the West Indies, you have guys with different passports and cultures and you have to try to bring them together over a three-month period. I know you can say the West Indies teams of the 1970s and 1980s did that but times have changed. If you were in Brisbane when the West Indies team arrived you would have seen the Jamaicans heading to dinner in one group, the Guyanese all together in another group".
They are the kind of insular divisions that have been with West Indies cricket since a group of players from the scattered British colonies of the Caribbean and South America came together for the first tour under the banner, to the United States and Canada in the late 19th century. Occasionally, it has managed to rise above such pettiness but it has taken formidable leaders- H.B.G.Austin in the formative years, Frank Worrell and Clive Lloyd in more recent times - to achieve it.
In this regard, Chanderpaul, a captain by default, propelled into the post last March by Lara's second voluntary departure, may seem to an almost impossible mission. Ironically, it could be individual self interest that strengthens the team ethic on this tour and beyond, the realisation that everyone wants to "play the cricket" and that they can't do so by absenting themselves or by bickering among themselves.
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