Teamwork Adams' key to victory

He doesn't have the charisma and awesome natural talent of his predecessor, yet new captain Jimmy Adams has quickly stamped his personal signature on the West Indies team.

Brian Lara led from the front with batting capable not only of turning a match but an entire series. Adams concentrates on teamwork.

'Certainly among the players who have been around a while there is a sense that if we don't pull together we might as well pack up and give it away,' he said after last year's Lara-inspired comeback against Australia when he was vice-captain.

'We must do it and do it together and I think there is an inherent belief among our players that if we play well as a team we should win more matches than we lose.'

Tight Busta unit

Teamwork again got the credit after he led Jamaica to the 2000 Busta Cup and it was prominent again in his comments following Monday's incredible victory over Zimbabwe at the Queen's Park Oval in his first Test as West Indies captain.

'What satisfied me most was that, as a team, we never gave up,' Adams told the media.

It has not been an attribute always evident as the West Indies have capitulated so often in recent times.

Lara complained that 'the unity needs to be much better' after the 5-0 drubbing in South Africa in 1998-99.

'As a team, I'd prefer to have guys tight (and) together off the field and things would work better on the field,' he said then.

'You've got to remember we're all from different islands and different backgrounds.'

It is the formula for disruption that has forever been the bane of West Indies cricket. Adams knows that, without it, his team will not realise its full potential, limited as it is at the moment.

He and the new management team of Ricky Skerritt, Roger Harper, Jeffrey Dujon and Dr. Rudi Webster are also keenly aware that insularity is as pervasive and as dangerous as it has ever been and that it - and the negativity generated by the controversies that have become constant companions of West Indies cricket - can only be overcome on the field by complete harmony and commitment.

It made Monday's stirring effort all the more encouraging.

The impact of defeat to Test cricket's Lilliputians on a West Indian public already disenchanted with the sorry state of their treasured game is depressingly obvious.

'I don't think there was any more effort today than on the other four days, regardless of how it seems from the outside,' Adams said once the emotional outpourings had subsided on Monday.

'In layman's language, it was crunch time; we needed a response from everybody and today everybody gave that response.'

In the present circumstances, almost every day will be crunch time for a West Indies team worryingly weak in batting, especially now during Lara's sabbatical.

Pakistan, opponents for three Tests in May, will be an appreciably sterner challenge than Zimbabwe and the overseas tours that follow later in the year, to England in the summer and to Australia next season, will be serious tests of character, as much as cricketing ability.

It all gives added significance to Adams' favourite word, 'team'.

Next stop Jamaica

The series has now moved to Jamaica where the West Indies already had a significant psychological edge, even before Monday's victory.

There are seven Jamaicans in the squad of 13 and, as at the Queen's Park Oval, five are certain to file out tomorrow morning behind Adams onto the Sabina Park turf they all know so well and in front of family, friends and fans.

It will be a memorable occasion for Adams on a ground where he first played as a boy for Kingston Club but, every Jamaican and West Indian expects, even more memorable for Courtney Walsh, at 37, the oldest and most revered Test cricketer of the present generation.

Walsh, born and bred in Kingston and an accredited ambassador for his country, needs five wickets to place himself ahead of India's Kapil Dev as Test cricket's highest wicket-taker with 435.

Sabina should be packed to the rafters in anticipation of the moment.