T Becca: West Indies batsmen need bowlers' help (8 Jul 1998)

8 July 1998

West Indies batsmen need bowlers' help

Tony Becca

West Indies coach Malcolm Marshall believes the Windies could be back at the top of world cricket in a short time.

According to Marshall, if the West Indies defeat South Africa and Australia in the back-to-back Test series later this year and early next year, and if they go on to win the World Cup next summer, they will be back on top. And he is right - even though the West Indies still would have a score to settle with Pakistan following the 3-0 drubbing in Pakistan.

The question, however, is this: can the West Indies do it - are they, as they once were, good enough, not to win once, but to beat South Africa, then Australia, and then win the World Cup?

According to Marshall, they can. As far as he is concerned, and as one of the greatest bowlers of all time, he should know, the West Indies have an attack as good as any.

As important as bowling, like fielding, is in winning matches, batting is also important; and as the coach himself has said, the West Indies batting is not what it used to be.

The truth is that despite the presence of world record holder Brian Lara, the elegant Carl Hooper, and the dependable Shivnarine Chanderpaul, and based on the performances against England, even the explosive Clayton Lambert and Philo Wallace, the West Indies batting is average.

The next question therefore, is what can the West Indies do about it? The irony is that the problem has to do with the bowling. In order to produce better batsmen, the West Indies will have to produce other kinds of bowlers.

Looking at the West Indies batsmen of recent vintage, the vast majority are good against really fast bowlers on good pitches. Once the ball swings about or spins prodigiously too many are like novices.

Bred on a diet of fast, mostly straight bowling, and spin bowlers who do not spin the ball much, the present generation of West Indies batsmen are weak when it comes to moving their feet. The result is that they do not get behind the ball sufficiently enough, neither do they play right back or right forward. Most times they are caught with the bat away from the body, or playing in no-man's land - neither on the back foot nor on the front foot.

In order to solve one problem therefore, the West Indies have to solve another: in order to develop the technique of their batsmen, they have to develop more bowlers who can swing the ball and more bowlers who can spin the ball.

Right now, apart from Ian Bishop who appears on the other side of the hill, the West Indies have only two bowlers who consistently swing the ball - Kenneth Benjamin and Mervyn Dillon, and only three who really spin it - Dinanath Ramnarine, Keith McGarrell, and Rawl Lewis.

They need more - either that or they will have to send the batsmen off to England where, like so many West Indies batsmen of the past, they will have an opportunity to develop their skills against a variety of bowlers.

For the immediate future, for South Africa with one like Alan Donald, for Australia with one like McGrath and one like Shane Warne, and for the World Cup where there may be others like Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis of Pakistan, the West Indies will just have to pray that Lara, Hooper, and Chanderpaul come good - or that the bowling and the fielding are really as good as Marshall believes.

Source :: The Jamaica Gleaner (https://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/)