Sabina farce (13 March 1999)

13 March 1999

Sabina farce - West Indies not ready yet

Tony Cozier in Kingston

A confused situation was made worse yesterday for a West Indies team in need of all the stability it can get on the eve of the critical second Cable & Wireless Test against Australia.

The series of events since the traumatic collapse to the record low 51 at the Queen's Park Oval on Monday, and massive defeat by 312 runs come straight off the stage of a Broadway farce.

Corey Collymore, the young Barbados fast bowler in his debut first-class season, took BWIA's morning flight to Kingston, answering a hasty summons from selectors who had been informed by management that Reon King had damaged his right shoulder in practice on Thursday and could not be considered for selection.

It was Collymore's second change of plans in a couple of days.

Assuming, on the strength of media reports, that he was in the 13 for Jamaica, because an alleged back injury had eliminated Curtly Ambrose, he had packed his bags and had prepared to fly to Kingston on Wednesday with the rest of the team, only to be redirected at the last minute back home to Barbados.

The notice was so late that his cricket bags joined the rest of the kit to Jamaica.

So Collymore journeyed across Barbados again, from St. Lucy to Grantley Adams International Airport, to head for Kingston after all.

By the time he got there, just after noon, along with the three selectors who had hastily despatched him, observers at the West Indies' practise at Kensington Club were astonished to witness the same Reon King who had been declared unfit only 24 hours earlier bowling very fast and without encumbrance in the nets.

They also saw Ambrose passing a final test on what was a swollen and inflamed knee with a lengthy spell.

The upshot is that King, fully fit again after his 24-hour phantom injury, had already been removed from the squad of 13 and will have to return to Guyana today, no doubt utterly perplexed by the turn of events.

And Collymore stays, but only in a reserve capacity as Ambrose, Courtney Walsh and Pedro Collins will be the three fast bowlers used.

King and Collymore are new to the ways of West Indies cricket and, after a while, they will learn to accept such chaos as standard operating procedure.

There are a host of well documented reasons why West Indies cricket is in its present perilous state and high on the list is precisely this sort of administrative bungling.

Providing they can arrange to turn up this morning without directing the bus in some different direction, they already start the Test against Australia at Sabina Park today with a sense of hopelessness that can be best countered by the faith of their die-hard supporters - except that is presently in limited supply in these parts.

Jamaicans have not forgotten how Brian Lara came to the captaincy a year ago over their universally admired countryman, Courtney Walsh.

They are in no mood to forgive, especially following the recent soul-destroying defeats in South Africa for much of which Lara has been publicly blamed by his Board.

Those with their ears close to the ground, even moderate observers like the Daily Gleaner's sports editor Tony Becca, fear that Lara will be subjected to the kind of hostile reception that Richie Richardson received in his first home match as captain seven years ago.

If its mood is ugly, it will be intimidating for the beleaguered Lara especially, and also for his team, so roundly beaten in the first Test with its all-out 51, yet again depleted by key absentees and with the predictions of a pitch that will abet their opposition's strongest suit - leg-spin bowling.

With Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Carl Hooper once more missing for their different reasons, a considerable void in experience and class remains in the batting.

Roland Holder's ankle injury that effectively eliminated him from the first Test and has ruled him out of the third has removed further experience that Lincoln Roberts, the first Tobagonian to play Test cricket, cannot replace.

Accepting that the pitch will follow its pattern set all season and turn from early in the match, the selectors have included Nehemiah Perry.

West Indies: Brian Lara (captain), Sherwin Campbell, Suruj Ragoonath, Dave Joseph, Lincoln Roberts, Jimmy Adams, Ridley Jacobs, Nehemiah Perry, Curtly Ambrose, Pedro Collins and Courtney Walsh.

Australia: Steve Waugh (captain), Michael Slater, Matthew Elliott, Justin Langer, Mark Waugh, Greg Blewett, Ian Healy, Shane Warne, Jason Gillespie, Stuart MacGill and Glenn McGrath.

Umpires: Steve Bucknor (West Indies/Jamaica), Peter Willey (England).

Match referee: Raman Subba Row (England).

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