Richards to the test

Sir Viv Richards has had a traumatic introduction to the realities of contemporary West Indies cricket nearly a decade after he was its very embodiment as captain and the most intimidating batsman of his time.

Briefly pitchforked into the post of team coach after Malcolm Marshall was stricken down with his terminal illness during the World Cup, Richards was only around long enough to preside over defeat by Australia and elimination at the first round.

But he had seen enough to convince him that some of the players dont quite realise what cricket means to the Caribbean and to state that, if he had his way, half would go.

Some did go before he was recalled by the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) to be coach on the current tour of New Zealand where the results have, if anything, been even more disheartening.

We did not have to guess at his inner feelings as he witnessed the team deteriorate from the actual and psychological ascendancy of a first day total of 282 for one in a two-Test series to the ignominy of successive defeats by nine wickets and an innings and 105 runs.

The fleeting images of him on the television coverage carried that cold-blooded expression that once turned opposing bowlers and slack team-mates into jelly.

From this distance, it is impossible to tell what effect they have had in New Zealand but, even in his mellowing years, Richards is not one to put up with foolishness.

He has had to contend with some shocking, unintelligent all-round cricket and endure his team being outplayed in every department of the game and tactily out thought.

Most degrading of all, he has been part of a West Indies Test side virtually cowed into submission by competent but hardly overpowering opponents.

He has seen batsmen run themselves out like suicidal lemmings at critical moments, one off a no-ball.

He has asked his fast bowlers to bowl a fuller length and more direct line.

Even the opposing captain, Stephen Fleming, openly stated the obvious, that they were bowling too short, but only towards the end of New Zealands massive innings in the second Test did they conform to the advice, with the expected results.

Richards has heard his players complain like tell-tale schoolboys about sledging by a run-of-the-mill fast-medium bowler whose verbosity would have been answered with a volley of silencing strokes from proud West Indians of an earlier generation.

That was how Ricardo Powell, a 20-year-old with the old-time aggression that is lacking in this team, dealt with the abrasive Dion Nash in his debut Test only to be immediately discarded.

It is hard to believe that Viv Richards, the Master Blaster himself, was party to that decision.

He has witnessed history being made through a double-century by Matthew Sinclair, an undoubtedly promising young batsman, but one with a discernible weakness against bodyline bowling that no one seemed to pick up until he had passed 150.

A New Zealand newspaper reported after Sinclairs feat that an English journalist who had been touring with the England A team had discovered after Sinclair scored 182 against them that bowling straight and into his legs closed down many of his options.

The captain of that England A team was Mark Alleyne, a Barbadian and team-mate of Courtney Walsh at the English county, Gloucestershire.

Did no one seek him out for a little inside information

Not everything has been gloom and doom, for Adrian Griffith, a batsman with obvious limitations, has shown what can be achieved by application and determination and Reon King who, after all, has had only three Test matches looks the business as a fast bowler, if not as a fielder or batsman.

Richards is new to the position and still learning by bitter experience. As he has said, and is obvious, he needs time to make his mark.

It was incongruous, therefore, if typical of the way the WICB does things, for an advertisement inviting applications for his job to be placed in the regional press in the midst of Richards stint in New Zealand, especially as it is known he cannot meet the qualifications.

The job calls for, among other things, an advanced coaching certificate and certification or training in sports psychology. Richards has neither, which the WICB would have known when it set out its terms of reference and when it appointed him for New Zealand.

So it has again opened itself to controversy and embarrassment.

To overlook other applicants with the requisite qualifications and reappoint Richards would be to nullify its own credibility, such as it is.

To summarily discard him after seeking him out and appointing him only two months earlier would be equally wrong.

As one of the West Indies greatest cricketers, he deserves better than that.

It leaves the WICB having to come to a compromise, perhaps creating a new, unadvertised post for Richards to remain within the team management for the string of difficult engagements that lie ahead while employing the best qualified coach.

Why Richards should want to be re-engaged, given everything he has so far experienced, is a mystery. But he was never one to shirk from a challenge.