Time to put things right (2 January 1999)

2 January 1998

Time to put things right

Tony Cozier in Cape Town

Beaten in all three Tests, the series already lost, Brian Lara's assertion that his West Indies team is playing for pride in the Fourth Test starting at Newlands here this morning is more than a simple cliche.

Its abject performances in what was, for social and political as much as cricketing reasons, a tour of great expectations, have earned it widespread derision in South Africa as well as back home. It is time to put things right.

One of the jibes making the rounds at its expense is that it has introduced a new form of cricket to follow the night game, the Eights, Super-Max and other modern variations. Now we have the West Indies Test - it lasts three days.

A newspaper cartoon following the Durban defeat last Tuesday depicted a stoop-shouldered West Indies heading off the field with a white steelband player singing: "Day-o, day-o, Third Test gone and they wanna go home!'' Its a far cry from the heady days of West Indian dominance in the 1980s.

The effect of the demise has been most keenly felt among South Africa's emerging black cricketers, now being encouraged under various United Cricket Board schemes in the townships.

"What's been happening has had a negative effect on our development programmes,'' Khaya Majola, one of the best black players during the apartheid years and now one of the key administrators of the development programme. "The black kids look up to the West Indians as role models.''

Prospects for a belated West Indies revival are not especially promising. They already knew they would be without Courtney Walsh, whose torn left hamstring sustained in the closing stages of the third Test means that he will miss a Test for only the second time in his 15 years of international cricket through injury.

The leading bowler on either side in the series with 16 wickets, the loss of his experience, quality and inspiration will be immense.

It was compounded yesterday by confirmation that Franklyn Rose, whose fast outswingers earned him figures of seven for 84 in the first innings at Durban, would also be out with a damaged right shoulder.

Ottis Gibson, the 29-year-old Barbadian who is also capable of fast outswing bowling, joined the team last night and will replace Rose as one of the four fast bowlers alongside Curtly Ambrose, Nixon McLean and Merv Dillon.

Gibson, who has been playing for provincial team, Grigualand West, this season and had three earlier seasons with Border, is an experienced campaigner with an appreciation of how to bowl in South African conditions. His useful, hard-hitting late order batting in what will be his second Test should be a considerable boon to a team with a fragile tail.

Walsh's absence and the enforced shuffling of the attack will place more responsibility on Ambrose whose 35-year-old body is understandably feeling the effects of 11 years almost incessant cricket for the West Indies, the Leeward Islands and English county Northamptonshire.

His 21 overs in the Durban Test went without a wicket and he was a mere shadow of the great bowler who has taken 349 wickets in his 83 Tests.

It is clearly a chance for McLean, Dillon and Gibson to make out claims for themselves in a team that has long since been seeking long-term replacements for Ambrose and Walsh. Rose seized his opportunity in Durban and that should be example enough for them.

As Lara has observed, it is not the bowling that has let his team down but the batting. South Africa has only once past 300 in the three Tests with 312 in their first innings at Durban while the West Indies are yet to get near that modest figure and have been bowled out for under 200 four times.

"I still maintain that if we bat properly we can win matches against South Africa,'' Lara said after the Durban loss.

There was a glimpse of what might be during the partnership of 160 between Lara and Shivnarine Chanderpaul in the second innings at Durban but there was no support from anyone else. It has been the pattern all the way through.

The openers have again been such a problem that Junior Murray, a wicket-keeper never before used in the position, was sent in with Philo Wallace in the Third Test.

The teenaged Daren Ganga played promisingly on debut in difficult circumstances in the first innings at Durban and Ridley Jacobs has batted with more control and common sense than anyone so far.

The missing piece in the jigsaw puzzle is Carl Hooper who, yet again, has been a massive disappointment.

He is a vastly experienced cricket who holds down a pivotal position at No.5 but has been out to a succession of soft dismissals.

A significant contribution from him is long overdue. Gibson will be the 17th players used by the West Indies in the three Tests.

South Africa will make their first change here, left-arm spinner Paul Adams replacing the 38-year-old off-spinner Pat Symcox. It is one reflection on the state of the teams.

Adams joins opener Hershcelle Gibbs as the two non-white players in the eleven but it is not a ratio that has placated Sports Minister Steve Tshwete and others in the African National Congress government pressing for affirmative action to fast-track more into the team.

Source :: The Trinidad Express (https://www.trinidad.net/express/)