West Indies' woeful slide in Test cricket

Such moments have been few and far between for West Indies over the last ten years © Getty Images

It's a measure of just how far West Indian cricket has fallen that they start a tour of England as the overwhelming underdogs, with almost all experts agreeing that they have little expectations from Ramnaresh Sarwan's side. Twenty years back, anything less than a West Indian whitewash would have been a disappointment to their fans; today, they'll be delighted with a drawn series. Everyone agrees that the current West Indian lot aren't a patch on the greats that played in the 1980s; this week the Numbers Game looks at just how badly they've fallen away.

In all West Indies have played have played 436 Tests, winning 149 and losing 138 (click here for an overall summary), which makes them one of four teams to have won more games than they have lost (Australia, England and Pakistan are the others). If they don't turn around their slump quickly, though, that difference of 11 could vanish in a trice. Almost a third of their total losses in Tests have come in this decade, a period in which they played only 82 Tests, which is only 19% of their total matches. In fact, in each decade from the 1950s to the 1990s, West Indies won more Tests than they lost (see table below). In the 2000s, they have lost three times as much as they have won.

Another indication of their freefall is the alarming rate at which the gap between the wins and defeats is narrowing. As recently as June 1997, the difference between the number of matches won and lost was a healthy 49. (Check their cumulative summary - after 333 Tests, they had won 129 and lost 80.) By the end of their England tour, it might be down to a single-digit score.

The golden period for West Indian cricket was undoubtedly between 1980 and 1995, when they won three times as many Tests as they lost, a stat which has been neatly reversed in this decade. In that 16-year period, only twice did they lose more than two Tests in a year.

With a batting line-up that included at least three of Greenidge, Haynes, Richards, Richardson and Lloyd for most of that 16-year period, it's hardly surprising that the West Indian batting wore such a solid look. The partnership stats for the first six wickets indicate that there was barely a hole in their line-up. Since 1996, the top order has been far patchier.

The real difference, though, has been in the bowling firepower, a fact that came to fore again on the opening day of the Lord's Test - it would have been impossible for England to coast to 200 for 3 against Malcolm Marshall and co. Over the 16 years from 1980 to 1996, the West Indian pace attack took their wickets at less than 24 apiece, at a time when there were no minnows to roll over either. Over the last 12 years, the average has increased by nearly nine runs.

The table below indicates just why West Indies were such a bowling powerhouse through the 1980s and the early 1990s - four of the six bowlers in the list took their wickets at less than 22 runs apiece.

Ambrose and Walsh lead the way, as expected, in the post-'95 era as well, but the stats for the rest make for sorry reading.

Admittedly, though, most of them aren't in the reckoning any more, while the newer lot are still finding their feet and have shown sparks of promise. Daren Powell, Jerome Taylor and the rest might develop into potent bowling weapons in the future, and West Indies' embarrassing slide will eventually stop. For the sake of world cricket - and the numbers that they'd so painstakingly built till the 1990s - here's hoping the turnaround happens quickly.