The West Indies Cricket Team; Players that should be in

Yes ideally a team of Kraigg Brathwaite, Adrian Barath, Kieran Powell, Darren Bravo, Marlon Samuels, Jermaine Blackwood, Dinesh Ramdin, Jason Holder, Carlos Brathwaite and some new quicks like Cummins and Beaton and some spinners might be a better team than at current. Chandrika was in the Sagicor High Performance Centre programme and did well there and for Guyana. Hence his pick. He may need more time in such a programme and with the A team. Shai Hope has potential but may also need time with the A team.

As noted elsewhere though, Barath and Powell aren't available at the moment. Hopefully they will be in the near future.

Cummins and Beaton will probably get called up in the future.

cricket_22001 wrote:In the last couple of years New Zealand & Bangladesh have made improvements to pitches for batting. This is borne out in their first class stats. In about 90 years of Plunket Shield it was the finest,generally, to have batting averages over 40. These include Crowe, Sutcliffe, Reid, Scott, Dowling, Turner. Now, their top 5 run getters are Sinclair, Papps, Fulton, Cumming, Harris & Bell. All internationals but not regulars & average over 40 in Plunket Shield. There are others.And the international performances have improved also.

In the first few years of Bangladesh's National Cricket League rarely anyone averaged 40 plus. In the last couple of years, ex international players Shahriar Nafees, Tushar Imran, Shuvogoto Hom & Rajin Saleh have lifted their average above 40. Current internationals Tamim Iqbal, Anamul Haque, Liton Das & Naeem Iqbal all average over 40 (some 50). Plus there has been an increase in double hundreds, with Mossadek Hossain leading the way.

So, where does leave the Windies?

With the need to improve the pitches for batting clearly. That's long been a talking point in the West Indies. And this year the board stated it would actually look into it for the Professional Cricket League.

The Windies are now almost regarded as a good will tour by the major countries. And those tours take place in the middle of the year (England excepted). But their domestic season is played November-February/March. So when the Windies host, no cricket is current for anybody except incumbents to have a reasonable opportunity to stake a claim for honors. (Maybe they go into camp!).

So maybe Windies have to bite the bullet & reschedule their domestic season.

Umm....how?

June to November is the hurricane/rainy season in the West Indies. It also gets incredibly hot from June to October. November to March is a much cooler time of the year and the weather is far better. April and May are also not that hot but you do get rains during that time as well, but not as much as in the official hurricane season (certainly not as much as in say September or October).

At best, if you want to get weather in which you can be fairly certain of playing out a full four days of cricket then the best months are November to April (maybe May).

Outside of the official first-class season, shorter forms of cricket are played (List A (with the tournament often being in October but now recently more in December/January), 50-over cricket below the List A level and 2-day, and 3-day cricket below the first-class level in the various territories - e.g. Guyana and Barbados do 3-day cricket (3 consecutive days); Trinidad does 2-day and 3-day cricket with the matches being scheduled for Saturday, Sunday and the following Saturday or for a Sunday and the following Saturday and Sunday); Jamaica does 2-day cricket, the Windwards do 2-day cricket and the Leewards do 3-day cricket).

Rather than reschedule their domestic season, there are other options available. Rescheduling the domestic season to fit the international season seems a bit odd really. Which other countries have ever fully rescheduled their domestic season?

Instead I think the West Indies should:

1. continue with the professional first class league. This is important because while other countries instituted professional first-class cricket years ago, the West Indies only really did so last season. Prior to that players were just paid per match and depending on the season they might have played anywhere between 5 to 12 matches. After the season was done, that was it. They would then go back to their regular lives (and jobs in many instances) and play cricket below the first-class level. Within a professional set up they would be paid year round to focus on their cricket and also keep regular contact with their franchise.

2. continue with the double round robin format. Incredibly for many, many seasons the first-class format was single round robin. With 6 teams (sometimes 7) you then only had a 5 matches per team at a minimum. With semi-finals and a final it would mean a couple teams played 7 matches, but the majority of the players would only play (at BEST) 5 matches per season. This is far, far too low. If you check the thread I have on the WI domestic season you can see where last season the performances of the teams improved noticeably by rounds 7-10 of the double round robin season. If there were only 5 rounds this improvement woudl never have happened. With double round robin, then every team plays at least 10 matches for the season now.

3. Improve the pitches for batting. This will build batsmen's confidence and experience as well as make the bowlers have to work harder for their wickets (and thus improve the bowling). The pitch has to be done right so it doesn't become too easy for batting of course, but they need to be better for batting than they currently are.

4. Encourage the territories to professionalize their own multi-day cricket and where possible to lengthen the matches played and to concentrate the player pool. For example, in Trinidad they could encourage that the traditional North v South fixture become basically the premier multi-day cricket series below the first-class level (the last time it was played on a multi-day basis (over 4 days in fact) was in December 2009), perhaps with 2 matches of 3 consecutive days and a final match of 4 consecutive days and with the best players from the 2-day and 3-day competitions being picked for the North and South sides. With the Leeward Islands it could be encouraged to (a) regularly play non-first class multi-day cricket (in recent times the Leewards tournament wasn't even held in a couple of seasons) and (b) encourage all the Leeward Islands to play their own 2-day cricket at least (currently only Antigua I believe and maybe Nevis play any multi-day cricket outside of the Leewards tournament). With the Windwards they could encourage the introduction of a North Windwards v South Windwards tournament consisting like the proposed format for Trinidad of 2 matches of 3 consecutive days and a final match of 4 consecutive days. In Jamaica they could encourage the reintroduction of the semi-pro league that had once been established. The problem in Jamaica would seem to be that with over 20 teams playing in their 2-day league they have issues with the best playing against best. Instead the league is divided up into geographical conferences (to save on money obviously) but this will mean that the strong teams from one area will not face the strong teams from another area. If they were able to reintroduce the semi-pro league (which had I believe the best 8-10 teams from across the island playing against each other and included promotion and relegation) but perhaps divide that higher level competition into geographical conferences to save money (and have matches played over 3 days - Saturday, Sunday and the next Saturday) then the performance of the Jamaican team in first-class cricket might improve. The same would hold true for Trinidad by the way (which has about 18 teams if I remember correctly competing in geographical based leagues for their 3-day championship/premiership) as one can note that in recent times the two most populous territories (Jamaica and T&T) have been middling teams. For Guyana they could encourage the local board to return some form of the current competition (3 counties playing 4 day cricket against each other) even after a new 8-team competition is introduced. For Barbados there wouldn't seem to be much need for any improvements (as both they and Guyana have been doing well in the first-class competition in recent times), though perhaps introducing a 3 team 4-day competition for the best of the best from the regular season). These encouraged improvements would be in addition to the usual trial matches that each territory has ahead of the first-class season.

5. Have more regular A-team matches and tours. Especially in the April to October period.

Also, even though the top 20-25 players aren't playing domestically, there appears to be an overall improvement in batting performances domestically this season. So have pitches improved?

Possibly. I suspect though it is more due to the fact that many of these players are now in a professional set up for the first time in a West Indies domestic competition.

Spinners feature prominantly in the averages. Now this might ruffle feathers but surely the Windies should play to their strength & embrace the spinners, especially at home. They have done it before in the 50s with Ramadhin & Valentine & no fast bowler of note. Just a thought.

Indeed and agreed. With the spinners though WI need to be cautious because Shillingford and Narine have demonstrated that some of the best spinners may indeed be the best pelters rather than the best spinners.

They just have too many inconsistent performers right now. Samuels looks bored, Ramdin & Taylor need to lift & support Holder. The right players is one thing, the right attitude is another thing.

Quite. That's been a perennial complaint from WI fans - even if you aren't a consistent or good performer right now, at least you should have the right attitude 99% of the time, which for whatever reasons a lot of WI players don't. Not even for their domestic teams (contrary to misinformed and popular belief). Folks sometimes think that maybe the players would perform better if they were playing for their territorial teams internationally instead of WI, but what happens at the WI level happens at the territorial level but it just gets reported less because domestic cricket isn't followed as widely around the world as international cricket. So at the WI level you have frequent strikes concerning tours. Guess what? Same thing happens at the domestic level, most notably when Trinidad qualified for the Champions League a few times (with a near strike one time as the players were, as usual, demanding more money from the Trinidad board ahead of the Champions League). This first-class season there was some disquiet and dispute concerning a few Trinidad players who went off to play in the Bangladesh T20 league during the first-class season. The players were incensed that the TTCB claimed that this move of theirs violated the terms of their contract and that as a result they would not be paid as per their franchise contract but would be selected and paid on a per-match basis upon their return. The players (as usual) made noises about retaining legal services over this dispute. And in the last first-class season we saw Dwayne Bravo and Pollard withdraw from the T&T first-class squad (in Bravo's case without so much as even playing a single match) after being selected and then declaring they were unavailable (basically retiring) for first-class cricket (Bravo) or taking an "indefinite break" from first-class cricket (Pollard). That kind of behaviour was just shoddy and unprofessional and would have been frowned upon by the administration in most other countries (Kevin Pietersen can tell them all about that when it comes to the ECB).

It has long been noted that the attitude of many of the current WI players improves markedly with the greater amounts of money being paid over to them. They play with a much better attitude in the IPL and other overseas leagues (though Gayle's attitude at Sydney Thunder, where he continued a lavish lifestyle off the pitch while only averaging 19 on the pitch and not having much runs in total for the season, was noted with widespread disapproval in Sydney overall....this season for the Big Bash League he is due to appear for Melbourne instead of Sydney Thunder which given what happened last season may not be surprising) and they played much, much better when the old Stanford league and Stanford's million-dollar match were being held.

The problem with that kind of financially dependent attitude is that there is simply NO WAY that the West Indies (much less the individual territories) can match the kind of money on offer from places like India, Bangladesh, England and Australia. With 6 million people in the West Indies (the majority being poor or middle income) it means you can't charge the same amount for a T20 match or a first-class match as you would in England or Australia or even India and it means you will never get the numbers of fans necessary to make up for low incomes (as you would in Bangladesh or Sri Lanka and in a way in India or South Africa) to produce the kind of gate receipts necessary to pay relatively huge, huge sums over to the players. In fact, the recent debacle in India was in part due to players like Bravo, Pollard, Ramdin and Sammy being upset that money which was originally paid to the senior players in lieu of central contracts had now been renegotiated by the WICB and WIPA to be paid towards the professional cricket league and giving the 90+ domestic players a year-round salary instead. In most other countries this would be seen as reasonable since the senior players now have central contracts (so paying sponsorship money in lieu of central contracts would seem redundant) and can get bonuses for performance. But the senior players didn't like the idea that the money they were used to getting was going to be possibly reduced in any way, shape or form (despite this being negotiated by their own union) and thus had their hissy fit moment over it.

It is interesting to note that most of these "mercenary" West Indians (as some fans have called them) seem to have little interest in playing T20 domestic cricket in New Zealand (at least this last season I don't remember any West Indians playing for any of the Kiwi domestic teams). This might well be because the amount of money that is on offer in NZ isn't high enough, which in turn might be related to the fact that NZ has a small population (around 5-6 million like the WI) and thus gate receipts and other sponsorship money would be lower than across the Tasman Straits in Australia. New Zealand is richer than the West Indies, so more can be charged per patron to attend the matches, but even this might not be enough it would seem to produce the kind of remuneration package that would make Gayle, Dwayne Bravo, Pollard, Dwayne Smith or Darren Sammy catch a plane to Wellington.

What is most disappointing with this attitude though is that in the West Indies, as per agreement between the various countries, West Indian cricketers (and I believe domestic cricketers) do not pay income tax since the various countries have agreed not to tax persons working in or participating in regional integration initiatives (so CARICOM employees are not supposed to pay income tax either I believe). As a result, WI players are actually not the worst paid players internationally but among the best paid (if I remember correctly, I once saw someone check the figures and WI players were (at the time) possibly the fourth best paid players based on their central contracts and tax-free incomes).

Perhaps in time new players with better attitudes (like Kraigg Brathwaite, Jason Holder, Jermaine Blackwood and Andre Russell) will come up through the system and gradually replace those still around with poor attitudes. But it won't happen overnight.

cricket_22001 wrote:Thanks JHunter for your reply. You certainly provided an insight to the workings of WI cricket.

You're welcome.

When I mentioned about rescheduling the 1st class season, I wasn't taking into account the weather. But there is evidence their international calendar has moved more towards the middle of the year instead of February to April as was the norm.

I think that's because they are cramming in more games into the same scheduling cycle. In my humble opinion they need to use the FTP as a guide but lengthen the period over which it is played.

I'm just old fashioned & believe that players should at least get a few games in before the internationals start. I can recall Grant Flower stating around 1997 or 1998 he wished there was more domestic games to work your way into form or to regain form.

I most certainly agree. This "cold start" foolishness has to come to an end if there really is any desire for the most competitive and meaningful cricket possible.

'A' tours are obviously the answer & in fact the Windies had Sri Lanka 'A' on tour in June 2013 before the Pakistan tour of July 2013 (shortened to ODIs & 20/20s only but originally tests were included). Also Bangla 'A' were on tour in late May/June 2014 before the NZ tour of June/July 2014 & Bangla again in August/Sept.

'A' tours are part of the answer. Like you noted, it would be good to have an 'A' team tour a host country ahead of an upcoming international tour (so have Pakistan 'A' tour ahead of a visit by Australia to the West Indies for example and be sure to include some of the senior West Indies players in the 'A' team as well as players being considered for selection). Sending an 'A' team on tour ahead of an international tour can also help (e.g. sending West Indies 'A' on tour of say Bangladesh ahead of West Indies tour to India; or even send West Indies 'A' to tour Sri Lanka ahead of a West Indies tour to Sri Lanka).

Another part of the answer is to simply have more tour matches on international tours. In the past (at least up until the 1980s) you used to have 1 tour match/practice match for every 2 international matches (and sometimes the ratio was closer to 1:1 or even slight higher in favour of the tour matches). Now you only have a 1-2 tour matches per tour (sometimes tours don't even have any tour matches) and these matches are much reduced in quality and time. So in 1981/1982 when West Indies toured Australia they played 3 test matches (as well as an ODI tri series involving Pakistan, but ignore that for now) and played FOUR first-class matches (three 4-day matches against Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia and one 3-day match against Tasmania): http://cricketarchive.com/Archive/Event ... 81-82.html

Now compare this to the current tour by the West Indies; you again have 3 test matches.....however there are only 2 tour matches. One was a first-class match against a Cricket Australia XI (but even then about 60% of that squad had never played first-class cricket) and the other is a 2-day match against a Victoria XI. This is ridiculous.

If when West Indies were world beaters they were playing 4 tour matches in preparation for 3 test matches, why the heck would they be expected to be competitive when they are in the doldrums if they are being scheduled 1 and 1/2 tour matches in preparation for 3 test matches?

At the very least my conception for proper preparation ahead of this Australia tour would have been to select a West Indies 'A' team to include Hope, Chandrika, Miguel Cummins, Beaton, Carlos Brathwaite, Dowrich, Warrican and a few other players and send them to Australia for 2 unofficial 'A' team tests against Australia 'A' for the period November 11-November 24. This would allow those players to participate in the first round of the domestic Professional Cricket League (November 6-9), fly to Australia and then play Australia 'A' in two 4-day matches scheduled for November 13-16 and November 20-23. The players who are also selected for the senior West Indies team can then remain in Australia and link up with the rest of the squad that arrives on November 27. Then there should be a tour match against say a New South Wales XI (not necessarily the NSW first XI since the Sheffield Shield will be ongoing, but other NSW first-class players and maybe some of the better Sydney grade cricket players being considered for first-class selection) on Nov 28-29 (if it can't be a NSW XI, then a Queensland XI similar to the NSW XI team I suggested) followed thereafter by a match against a Cricket Australia XI (with at least 70% of that CA XI being players who have already been selected for first-class matches even if they haven't actually played in a first class match).

Thus by the time of the first match you have at least 5 of the test squad members at the time having been in Australia since November 11 and thus having had a month to acclimatize and they would have had 4 matches in Australia ahead of the first test: 3 first class matches of 4 days each and a 2-day match. Senior players like Kraigg Brathwaite, Marlon Samuels and Darren Bravo would also then have had 2 tour matches ahead of the first test: 1 first class match of 4 days and a 2-day match. Kraigg Brathwaite and Darren Bravo both performed in the first match (but in separate innings) and so theoretically they would probably have performed no worse under this scenario. In fact they might have performed better with the extra practice match as well as perhaps performing better if others in the team performed better to provide them with support.

Might this have helped lift the performance of the team to allow it to win? Probably not. But then it would at least have allowed the team management to get a better idea of what might be the best team for the first test (perhaps Gabriel would not have been selected and Carlos Brathwaite would have been chosen instead) and what might be the best role for each player (Hope could have been played as an opener in 2 of the 4 matches and at No. 6 in the other 2, while Chandrika could have opened in all 4 matches). And with that the performance may have been better (even marginally so). Perhaps we might have seen one or two other players supporting Darren Bravo and Kraigg Brathwaite and the result could have been a couple of big partnerships to push the West Indies to 250 or more runs in each innings. They might still have lost by an innings, but instead of losing by an innings and 200+ runs the loss might have been by an innings and 80+ runs. They might even have forced Australia to bat again to score a few runs for victory.

After this I would then schedule a 3-day match against a Victoria XI instead of the 2-day match currently on the books.

This then would mean that senior players like Darren Bravo would have 3 tour matches (a 2-day match, a 3-day match and a 4-day match) scheduled for the 3 match test tour of Australia, while newer players like Carlos Brathwaite, Hope and Chandrika would have had 5 matches in Australia outside of the 3 test matches.

I read your comments after DJ Bravo's article. While some lament his & Gayle's absence, there is real evidence that the Windies results were not much better with them in the team. They may have been more competitive but neither player had a "winning" culture.

Indeed. That's what makes the lamentations so puzzling to me. I well remember West Indies being embarrassingly defeated in England for test matches with Gayle and Bravo in the squad with margins of defeat of a similar nature.

And in the end if West Indies lose 3-0 without Gayle and Bravo or lose 3-0 with Gayle and Bravo, what does it matter if they were present or not? If with their level of experience their mere presence is hoped for so that the losses are more competitive then it is not saying much for either player. It would be the equivalent of hoping for the presence of someone with the experience of Andrew Strauss to the same effect. Players with that level of experience should bring with them a winning culture and attitude and performances competitive enough that winning is a real possibility. That this is not the case with many of the hired guns speaks volumes to how poorly they have been performing.

The fact that Pollard & Russell have not had test careers is a greater tragedy.

Indeed. Pollard especially seems to have had the potential to be a dangerous test player. And perhaps a test career may have positively impacted on his limited overs career by encouraging him to build longer innings. Of all the hired guns, I would say that he definitely would have grounds to complain about selection policy.

Both have chosen the shorter formats, all the hired guns are probably good friends & may well have taken on the grievances of the senior members of that group.

I can recall listening to Ian Bishop during the Windies tour of South Africa, & Russell was sounded out for the tests but stated injuries restricted him to the shorter format. Bishop didn't seem ed impressed or convinced.

As well Bish shouldn't be. That excuse is rubbish:

1. Why does it seem that mainly West Indian players have these magical injuries that somehow restrict them to the shorter (and coincidentally more lucrative) format?

2. What muscles and tendons are being injured that are used in the longer format but not in the shorter format? Perhaps the injury is not physical but financial, like a broken wallet or something.....

3. If as a player, you keep getting these kinds of injuries that are preventing you from fulfilling your potential, would it not be prudent to ensure your injuries heal properly and that you are getting to right treatment for them? Because so often these players claim "injury" but seem fine enough to go diving about in a T20 match (yet standing at long stop where you can essentially rest all day and batting sedately by blocking 4 out of every 6 balls and then scoring a couple of twos is somehow not possible). That to me doesn't wash. Not with Russell and not with Gayle. Gayle recently spoke of one of the T20 matches in Bangladesh leaving him feeling like a freight train had hit him. Now if you feel like that after a T20 match, does that not suggest to you that....I dunno...maybe you need to take a bit longer with your recovery time? Because if I felt like that, I would assume my body is trying to tell me something about the activities I'm attempting.

I recall that once Jerome Taylor had to pull out of a tour of Australia due to a near debilitating injury after bowling only a few balls. Leading up to that sorry show, I remember quite clearly he was having persistent injury issues and I thought to myself that he isn't taking proper care of himself. He was then out of cricket (all forms of cricket) for almost a year or more I believe. His career was actually in danger. But now he's back, having undergone proper rehabilitation. Is he the same? No. But at least his injury issues are much reduced. Had he addressed those injury issues properly and earlier perhaps he wouldn't have been out as long and he might be less of shadow of himself as a player.

Certainly West Indian players do have injury issues. At around the same time Taylor was finding his career in jeopardy due to an injury, Fidel Edwards was also in and out of the team due to injury. The only player who was ALWAYS there was Darren Powell. And he wasn't any good. But he was fit like no other. In fact it was suggested to me that perhaps his fitness and availability was a major reason why the selectors kept going with Powell time after time.

Pollard deserved a chance & despite obvious batting flaws, we will never know.

Agreed.

IPL spokesmen have mentioned how popular the Windies players are in the tournament. Since most of the current crop are over 30, where is the next crop coming from?

Good question. One to which I don't have the answer.

It is also a question I don't see asked very much, likely because very few IPL spokesmen and fans of the current hired guns are even thinking about "who comes after?"

But then perhaps this wouldn't be such a bad thing. If the next crop isn't as popular it might mean that the next crop will take the other forms of cricket more seriously in order to earn their living instead of seeing the IPL as their bread and butter and international cricket as a necessary but unwelcome toll.

ZIMDOGGY wrote:To aswer your query,

only outright quick 150+ bowlers have a case for quitting test cricket.

The rst are soft p***ks or, as you imply, turning they back on the Windies.

I see.

I sitll think the truth is in Laras bemoans a decade ago.

Its hard to unite the West Indies when you are trying to squash a few different nations together.

I guarantee Gayle sees himself as a Jamaican, not a Windian, and so forth.

Lara was a great batsman but a poor captain. It was hard for him to unite persons from different nations together, but then he wasn't a super captain for Trinidad and Tobago either, at least not super enough to get his team (all from the same nation) to win the domestic competitions regularly during his tenure. He captained T&T at some points during his first class career but to the best of my knowledge he never once led T&T to a single first-class title during that time. In fact for the duration of his first-class career with Trinidad (from 1987/88 to 2007/08), his side won the first class title once in 21 seasons and that time (2005/06) the side was led by Daren Ganga. And it is Ganga who is reputed as T&T's most successful captain, not Lara. In fact Lara's only domestic title I believe were the List A tournaments in 1990, 1995 (a no result on both days resulting in a shared title with Guyana) and 1996. The fact that the best modern batsman in West Indian history since the 1980s could only lead his domestic side to 3 titles (and with one of those titles coming from a no-result) should probably be considered when taking into account his views on leading the West Indian side. I've never got the impression that Lara was better received as a captain for Trinidad and Tobago than was Ganga in terms of his personality.

The truth is that the idea that the players find it difficult to unite because they are from different nations is more of an excuse than a fact in most cases. Teams composed of players from many different communities (different nations in the IPL; different counties for England; different states for Australia; different states for India - and in some of these cases the differences between players' territories of origin can be more different than the differences between various West Indians territories; for instance southern India speaks Dravidian languages while northern India speaks Indo-Aryan languages) work well enough when the right captain is chosen. Choose the wrong captain though and people from the same village, let alone the same county, country/territory or region/nation will not get along and gel to achieve an objective through teamwork.

Incidentally Gayle sees himself as both Jamaican and West Indian (as do many others), and while his attitude towards international cricket (especially test cricket) leaves something to be desired, he isn't insular (he regularly paid respect to the song chosen for the WI anthem at sporting events; regularly supports other West Indian players from other territories and when Lara was having hissy fits he would be the one to carry and fly the WI flag). He may be prone to bias towards his friends (Bravo, Pollard, Shiv, Sarwan, Russell), but his friends in the West Indian cricketing community are not exclusively Jamaican and as such if he has ever displayed bias in his captaincy it is not an insular bias but a bias towards his clique. Outsiders tend to confuse the two because everything is being viewed through the lens of island identities.

JHunter wrote: Outsiders tend to confuse the two because everything is being viewed through the lens of island identities.

And as if attempting to demonstrate perfectly what I said in my last sentence, along comes former Hants cap'n and cricket presenter Mark Nicholas with an article so full dross I have to wonder how much cricinfo pays for stuff like that, because if they pay him at all for that then he is making a killing and getting something for nothing:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/co ... 52847.html

Is it time for the West Indian nations to go it alone?

MARK NICHOLAS

Caribbean cricket is at a desperately low ebb, and there's little hope of things improving the way they're going at the moment

Was the West Indies era of dominance a fluke? © Getty Images

We are all dewy-eyed about West Indies cricket. With both frustration and sadness in his voice, one eminent former Australian captain doubted the present team would have beaten the stronger Sydney grade sides of his time. We tell stories of battles past against some of the most brilliant cricketers the world has seen and pick teams that have Clive Lloyd as captain, four fast bowlers, and Jeffrey Dujon behind the sticks.

None of this helps Jason Holder's men. They are victims of history, as were the Welsh rugby team for so long. The only difference is that the Welsh rugby players kept busting a gut. Some of Holder's number look resigned to the inevitable. Test cricket offers no hiding place. Long days and the vignettes that are an integral part of them strip a man bare. One cannot help but feel for Holder, who has been sent to the wolves as much because of a lack of options as anything else. He is a promising cricketer trying to make his way in three formats of a complex and widely profiled game. His standards are high and his dignity unimpeachable. But the captaincy, though a great honour, is surely a burden.

What really grated in Hobart was the indifference in the body language of the experienced players. It is well enough documented that Marlon Samuels strolled from long leg to mid-on as if he were playing a charity match. Nor was he the sole offender. Jerome Taylor and Kemar Roach turned over their arms without any of the zip that gave them a reputation. In Australia, the pitch must be hit hard. Then rumours suggested that a couple of the bowlers all but refused to run in against the wind. Rumours are dangerous and tend to come from dissatisfaction. Then again, the media feed from rumours.

Most of the batsmen simply look out of their depth, both technically and mentally. Having said that, Darren Bravo remains a good-looking player and has Brian Lara for counsel. A big tick goes to Kraigg Brathwaite - like Holder, out of the splendid Wanderers club in Barbados - for his second-innings resilience. His record against Australia is so bad it isn't funny but he just damn well hung in there, winning admirers along the way to his 94. He deserved to carry his bat and would do worse than to start to think like Steve Waugh in such a situation.

It is difficult to see a resurrection. The years of plenty were something of a fluke, as if the stars aligned to produce something astrologers will talk about for all time; a momentary thing of beauty and brilliance and, within it, an irresistible brutality. First the three Ws, Sobers, Kanhai, Hall and Griffith, then Lloyd and the marauders. Yes, Learie Constantine and George Headley created a pre-Second World War stir but not so much that the world feared the opponent as a whole.

The plain fact is that the world and the game change. The Caribbean doesn't. It stands resolutely still in time. The problem is that high-quality players are no longer there to cover for this

Both league and county cricket in England nourished and rewarded the more gifted players before the confidence of life in these nurseries began to create results. Probably, the regions of the Caribbean themselves were no better administered then than they are now, but like the uprising of any dictatorial power that has strength and idealism at its core, the players took hold. Viv Richards and Andy Roberts attended Alf Gover's cricket school in Wandsworth in the early 1970s. Alf felt Andy could bowl a bit but thought Somerset were gambling when they took on Viv. A hunch says that the Viv Richards at the Gover school, when he was around 20 years old, would have found Josh Hazlewood, James Pattinson and Nathan Lyon a handful at Bellerive. The difference is that Viv - as driven a man as the game has known - would have gone on to work it out.

If you haven't been to the Caribbean, you will be delighted by the simple life. Fewer than six million people, an endearing lack of infrastructure, no compelling reason for investment outside its own boundaries - except tourism, of course, and low levels of motivation for much but sun, sea, sand and those glorious sunsets. Wonderful! May it forever be so.

But sport is moving fast. The Caribbean's irresistible lifestyle is not necessarily a recipe for success in the global commercial marketplace. The West Indies Cricket Board is painfully aware of this and appears to be at a loss for answers. Briefly, Allen Stanford saved them from themselves but we know the conclusion of that story.

Heartbreaking as it is to see Chris Gayle, Dwayne Bravo and company drifting to the money elsewhere, it should be no surprise. Previous generations did the same but with blessing because the game was smaller and schedules far less compromising. West Indian players could spend the whole of one summer in four in England: improving their lot in myriad ways and making a living free from the limitations of island life, to which they returned for rum and rest.

Perhaps it now makes more sense for the regions to go it alone. The Professional Cricket League still has the game spread too thinly and "franchises" are a terrible sop - as if a fancy name will change anything. Sometimes it is wiser to turn back time and establish what made things acceptable in the very beginning.

West Indian cricket might benefit from being stripped back to a concentration of talent in Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and one other - Guyana or the Leewards perhaps, though stocks are low. The best players from other islands would have to gravitate to the only first-class cricket available. For sure it would be easier to lead.

The relaxed Caribbean lifestyle is in stark contrast with how fast the game is evolving © Getty Images

A governing board of 17 people seems absurdly overblown. This is made up of representatives from the 16 nations that play under the banner of West Indies. Apparently, recommendations from the Caribbean community (CARICOM) that call for the immediate dissolution of that board are to be thrown out. It is a bizarre situation. One that would benefit from a blank sheet of paper. Autonomy and self-interest might serve well in the present crisis and allow "a big four" the chance to consolidate affairs and needs and drive the future from strength.

The four regions could play six home and away first-class matches against one another - or nine or 12 if need be - and expose the players to a greater fight for places and intensity of competition. Fifty-over cricket will almost certainly stay an inter-island affair, including all associates and neighbours in a league then knockout form with each of the four first-class teams seeded. The Caribbean Premier League would surely remain the commercial animal it is now. Of course, the CPL - any national T20 league - is the root of the fastest-growing problem in global cricket. Put simply, it offers a great deal for not much. It is difficult to criticise West Indian cricketers for deserting the insanity that prevails within the West Indies Cricket Board and taking the dollar elsewhere.

In general, the same opinions about cricket in the Caribbean have been bandied about for a while. Sure, ongoing disputes between the players and the WICB do not help. Yes, other interests suck young talent out of the cricket vacuum and into the ether. From afar, it appears that pitches are not what they once were - slow, low, boring these days. Pride and ambition look to have been lost but defeat after defeat will do that. The plain fact is that the world and the game change. The Caribbean doesn't. It stands resolutely still in time. The problem is that high-quality players are no longer there to cover for this.

The cabal formed by India, England and Australia will marginalise every other major cricket-playing nation. The next to be severely threatened will be South Africa. It may be that, genuinely, the cabal cannot see this. But they are blind. The diminished form of Test cricket is before us, crystal clear. If no one really cares, then fine, carry on regardless. But the lowest common denominator will not sustain the most beautiful game.

Mark Nicholas, the former Hampshire captain, presents the cricket on Channel Nine in Australia and Channel 5 in the UK

So Mr. Nicholas' "solution" is that there is little hope for improvement so the territories should just go it alone. However, even though they apparently may as well go it alone they should:

- retain the CPL (how? Without a caribbean-wide board, how is the CPL to be administered? Like the old Champions League T20 with multiple independent boards banding together to organize the competition? And when one of these boards disagrees on some aspect of the running of the CPL, what then? Does it go the way of the CLT20 and disappear as a result of an impasse causing the competition to grind to a halt?)

- retain the 50-overs inter-territorial competition (again, how? That is run by the board from funds generated through international cricket coming to the West Indies and TV rights ----> no WICB/no West Indies = no international cricket of any substance and no TV rights of any substance = no money = no competition.....unless he believes that the various independent boards are going to print money or get the players, support staff, groundsmen, airlines, buses and taxis to contribute to the running of the competition out of charity or something. Maybe the players, support staff and groundsmen might work for free, but good luck getting free airline tickets for the players to all get together to play in a competition)

- retain first-class status for the "big four" (how? First-class status is now only accorded by FULL member boards or by the ICC. Long gone are the days when a non-member board or non-full member board could simply declare a match or a team to have first-class status. No first-class status means that the migration/gravitation of players he speaks of from the "lesser teams" to the "only first-class cricket available" won't see Leeward Islanders migrating to Barbados, but rather see all West Indian players who wish to play first-class cricket migrating to England, Australia, New Zealand, Zimbabwe, South Africa, India and Sri Lanka.)

Essentially, while suggesting that perhaps it makes sense for the territories to go it alone, he would think it makes sense for them to retain more or less the current structure that is in place (i.e. not go it alone) with the tweaks that the 50 over competition should include the other associates and affiliates in the Caribbean and having only four first-class teams instead of six.

What he is really suggesting would make much more sense if he simply called for the WICB to cut the number of first class franchises from six to four and to regularly invite the associates and affiliates in the Caribbean to partake in the 50 over competition. Coincidentally that is going to happen this season when an ICC Combined Americas team participates (it will also participate in the CPL). This team was selected based on a two phased trial system and all the players are from either the USA or Canada after 15 players were whittled down from 83 players (initially selected from hundreds of applicants) from the United States, Canada, Argentina, Bermuda, Suriname and the Cayman Islands.

But it seems for some at least the idea that various states should continue to remain combined to play a sport makes no sense. :roll:

Now, his oxymoronics aside, the heart of his suggestion has some merit - a greater concentration of the existing first class talent and the participation of other teams from the Americas in the 50 over (and 20 over) competition might be better for the game overall.

In that regard cutting the number of first-class teams from seven to six (with the axing of the Combined Campuses and Colleges (CCC) team from the first-class competition) might have been a step in the right direction.

For myself though, I would have kept the CCC team in the first-class competition (they weren't bad as a team; not great but they weren't bad) and extended the competition from single round-robin to double round robin (as was done). This would mean each team would play 12 matches now instead of 10. BUT at the end of the competition I would then have the best 33 players (with a further 9 as reserves) selected to compete a second first-class competition of 3 teams playing double round robin. The teams could be called "West Indies maroons", "West Indies golds" and "West Indies blues (or silvers)" after the colours of the West Indies. At this point then the best 33 players would each play a further 4 first-class matches each with only a further 6 matches being played in total (and thus have one match in each territory's best first-class cricketing venue). As a result the best 33 players might well have been able to play 16 first-class matches in total for the season.

They could still do this after the current competition of 6 teams by the way, and the best 33 players could play 14 first-class matches in total for the season. Afterwards the best 25-30 players would likely be the ones who ended up in the senior West Indies squad or the West Indies A team for the following year.

I would also have the 50 over competition mirror the first-class competition (including with the maroons, golds and blues (or silvers) teams) in structure, while keeping the current List A competition in January (that competition would mirror the World Cup in structure with groups and knockout phases). In that way you should end up with players who are used to the format of international cricket where you have test matches and limited overs matches on a tour (so the first-class and List A double round robin competitions would be similar to this) and have numerous limited overs only competitions like the World Cup, World T20 and Champions Trophy)

JHunter wrote:

4. Encourage the territories to professionalize their own multi-day cricket and where possible to lengthen the matches played and to concentrate the player pool. For example, in Trinidad they could encourage that the traditional North v South fixture become basically the premier multi-day cricket series below the first-class level (the last time it was played on a multi-day basis (over 4 days in fact) was in December 2009), perhaps with 2 matches of 3 consecutive days and a final match of 4 consecutive days and with the best players from the 2-day and 3-day competitions being picked for the North and South sides. With the Leeward Islands it could be encouraged to (a) regularly play non-first class multi-day cricket (in recent times the Leewards tournament wasn't even held in a couple of seasons) and (b) encourage all the Leeward Islands to play their own 2-day cricket at least (currently only Antigua I believe and maybe Nevis play any multi-day cricket outside of the Leewards tournament).

well now at least the Leeward Islands Cricket Association president is saying the right things. It remains to be seen if the words will be followed with actions:

http://antiguaobserver.com/lica-to-targ ... rritories/

LICA To Target Delinquent Territories

December 17, 2015 Neto Baptiste

President of the Leeward Islands Cricket Association (LICA) Auckland Hector.

President of the Leeward Islands Cricket Association (LICA), Auckland Hector said those territories that are currently without domestic programmes will have to get their acts together or risk being dropped as members of the sub-regional cricket board.

Hector, who will be seeking a second two-year term as head of LICA when the organisation hosts general elections next month, said one of his desires is to introduce regulations that would ensure all territories have regular competitions.

“One of the things we are going to be putting forward is that there be minimum requirement for member territories to continue to be active members. In other words, we are going to set up a list of requirements. So, in other words, you cannot maintain your membership if you are not having any cricket activity in your territory. Then, we are going to be insisting that there is club cricket inside all of the territories that we have an academy,” he said.

Currently, only Antigua & Barbuda, St Maartin and St Kitts host domestic cricket. St Maartin and St Kitts, however, only play the shorter Twenty/20 format of the game, while Antigua & Barbuda contests all the formats.

According to Hector, there have been many other challenges throughout his first tenure, most of which, he said, have been rectified.

“One of the main challenges that the Leeward Islands has is that we have eight territories comprising the Leeward Islands Cricket Association or Board as it is now, and we have had to relocate 11 players as opposed to all the other major territories like Barbados, Trinidad, Guyana, Jamaica, who really have to only relocate two players every franchise year,” the president said.

“This year, we have ironed out all those issues that the players and the team encountered in their first year, including player allowances for accommodation and transport. The fact that we did not have a physio and medical support for the team fulltime, the players were not provided with kits. Monthly salaries were not being paid on time and that has been addressed,” he added.

Hector, nominated by the St Kitts & Nevis Cricket Association and seconded by Anguilla Cricket Association, believes that he should be allowed to complete the work he started.

“It has been a trying year or a couple of years rather, over the last two years. There is a lot left to be done for the further development of Leeward Islands cricket and, at the moment, Leeward Islands cricket is in real shambles and there is a plan afoot to address all those issues,” he said.

Antigua & Barbuda’s Enoch Lewis is the other nominee for the post of president. The election is slated for January 5 in St Kitts.

I'm not sure what the sanctions are going to entail; if he means that members that don't re-establish domestic cricket in all formats will be suspended and become non-active members of LICA or if their membership will be discontinued entirely. I would agree with the first and disagree with the latter. The eight member associations (Antigua & Barbuda, Anguilla, Montserrat, St. Kitts, Nevis (Nevis is separate from St. Kitts for the purposes of Leeward Islands cricket due to historical factors), St. Maarten, the US Virgin Islands and British Virgin Islands) need to have domestic cricket in all forms (multi-day, 50 over and 20 over). And there are many cost effective ways to organize such competitions (multi-day cricket can be played on 2 consecutive Saturdays for instance) and only with such competitions will players get better in the Leewards and be able to properly strengthen the Leewards squad (which based on the current situation means that only the Antiguans on the squad or players who have participated in the Antiguan multi-day competition) have any kind of domestic multi-day experience outside of the PCL.

JHunter wrote:

3. If as a player, you keep getting these kinds of injuries that are preventing you from fulfilling your potential, would it not be prudent to ensure your injuries heal properly and that you are getting to right treatment for them? Because so often these players claim "injury" but seem fine enough to go diving about in a T20 match (yet standing at long stop where you can essentially rest all day and batting sedately by blocking 4 out of every 6 balls and then scoring a couple of twos is somehow not possible). That to me doesn't wash. Not with Russell and not with Gayle. Gayle recently spoke of one of the T20 matches in Bangladesh leaving him feeling like a freight train had hit him. Now if you feel like that after a T20 match, does that not suggest to you that....I dunno...maybe you need to take a bit longer with your recovery time? Because if I felt like that, I would assume my body is trying to tell me something about the activities I'm attempting.

And now we have this news:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/bangladesh- ... 53699.html

BPL 2015-16

December 20, 2015

BCB 'looking into' Gayle omission -

Hassan MOHAMMAD ISAM

Chris Gayle made 139 runs in four matches for Barisal Bulls before sitting out the BPL's second Qualifier © Dhaka Tribune

BCB president Nazmul Hassan has said the board is investigating Barisal Bulls' decision not to field Chris Gayle in the BPL's second qualifier on December 13, but did not elaborate on the matter when pressed further.

The Barisal management informed at the time that Gayle had complained of back pain on the morning of the game. The BPL was Gayle's comeback tournament since undergoing back surgery.

During the press conference in Mirpur on Sunday, Hassan was asked if the BCB had received any information or complaints regarding specific allegations of corruption in the BPL. He said the board had not received any, but added that they were looking into the Gayle issue.

"One could hold suspicion about certain matches from the BPL's first two seasons," Hassan said. "But none of that caught our attention this time. Our local ACSU team, who worked during the BPL, didn't inform us of anything, but it is a continuous process.

"At the same time, there is one issue which they are already working on. It is about Chris Gayle's [non] appearance in the semifinal [Qualifier]. There is some discussion about it. We are looking into it. I am not saying there was anything untoward but we are investigating the matter."

When asked to explain the Gayle issue further, Hassan said it would not be wise to discuss the matter without any specific complaint.

When contacted, the Barisal franchise co-owner Rizwan bin Farouk said the team was not going to force Gayle into playing a game with a back injury.

"If the player is injured, he can't play. You can't force him to play. He has had an operation. When he called the doctor, he was told to go back immediately," Farouk told ESPNcricinfo, adding that the franchise's contract with Gayle was for him to play "four to five matches" during the BPL season.

Gayle played four games, scoring 139 runs including an unbeaten 92 against Chittagong Vikings on December 9. During his stay for Barisal, he was also left out of the December 10 match against Dhaka Dynamites.

BPL governing council chairman Afzalur Rahman Sinha was quoted as telling the Bengali daily Prothom Alo during the Barisal-Rangpur qualifier that the council had learned of Gayle's unavailability just before the game. He said the council would investigate the Barisal franchise's decision not to pick Gayle.

"We have to examine if there was any other motive in this regard," Sinha told Prothom Alo. "We have to find out why Gayle wasn't played. We will investigate the matter after the tournament. They could have let us know earlier. The BCB physio and doctors could have looked after the problem. But they didn't tell us.

"We heard that he won't be playing a little while before the match began, and that he will be leaving [the country]. If he had an injury, he wouldn't be able to field the full game yesterday [December 12]. It would have been revealed in the field."

The BCB and the BPL's governing council and technical committee, however, do not have the jurisdiction in the composition of a team's playing XI, according to the BPL's rules and playing conditions.

At the toss of the same game, Barisal captain Mahmudullah said Gayle was going to join his BBL team in Australia and was hence unavailable. Their manager told the media that Gayle had notified the franchise of his back pain on the morning of the match. "He informed us this morning that he has back pain, which is why he can't play today. Because he just returned from injury, we didn't force him. Gayle wants to have treatment of his back pain in Australia," Barisal manager Saidul Islam was quoted as saying by Prothom Alo.

In the post-match press conference Sabbir Rahman said the Barisal team had known of Gayle's unavailability earlier. "After our last match, we heard that Gayle wouldn't be playing this game," he said.

Mohammad Isam is ESPNcricinfo's Bangladesh correspondent. @isam84

Gayle's contract was to play 4-5 games in the BPL. He played 4 games before missing that match due to back pain in the morning. The BPL finished on December 15 and Gayle then seemed to recover enough from the back pain to turn out for the Melbourne Renegades in a BBL match on December 19: http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/897699.html.

I humbly suggest that if one wakes up in the morning with back pain so bad that one has to miss a T20 match (much less an ODI match) after playing 4 previous T20 games and having back surgery, then perhaps one needs to seriously reconsider how one goes about the post-surgery recovery programme.

Personally I can't see how Gayle is going to return to test cricket (as is his stated goal for 2016; in that regard I respect Gayle for at least desiring to play some test cricket and to work towards that goal unlike some of his colleagues (save Pollard)) for any long stretch of time if he keeps having these problems and doesn't give himself the necessary recovery time.

ZIMDOGGY wrote:It seems weird to me that the Test side is getting halloped but Gayle,Bravo,Lendl are all playing well in the BBL and Dr. 'dre Russell is absolutely killing it as the Thunders Marquee.

The guy is hitting them everywhere and sending down 150's.

ZIMDOGGY wrote:i actually heard a casual cricket fan friend of mne say 'Australia needs to get more guys from the windies they are better than us'.

Theres so many interpretations and thoughts that can come from that statement, or why a person would think this.

Jemisi wrote:Watched the Thunder vs Sixers live from the cover point boundary the other day. Don't know what the speed gun said, but Russell looked the quickest on the park. Bowling very heavy balls.

Bingo.

Now you see why Ian Bishop was rather skeptical about Russell's claim that injury keeps him out of test cricket.

In truth as Zimdoggy said, only outright quicks have a case for quitting test cricket. Russell sending down 150s would put him in that category, but since he hasn't really done test cricket (only a solitary test back in 2010), he can't claim he needed to quit test cricket because of injury since he never really attempted test cricket.

In any case, might it not be possible for him and the selectors to thrash out a work load schedule for him so that he could play some test cricket and not endanger his career? Even if he only did one test series a year that would certainly be better for the team than to not have him in at all (it could even be used as a chance to give one of the main bowlers a rest).

As for the rest of the lot, Bravo as I pointed out is a great spinner. Not of the ball, but of facts. He will claim injustice on the part of the selectors but after a hiatus of a few years from first-class cricket his returns in West Indian domestic cricket were mediocre (and this is in a competition that many deride as being of lower quality than the first-class competitions in India, Australia, South Africa and England...so if your returns are mediocre in a competition derided by some as being "substandard", what is that really saying about your performance?).

Lendl at least was honest enough to say money was the reason he wasn't interested in playing Test cricket at the moment:

http://www.sportsmax.tv/?q=articles/201 ... st-cricket

1

Former West Indies opener, Lendl Simmons will not be playing Test cricket for the regional side.

According to the Trinidad and Tobago batsman, until issues with the remuneration for playing the longer format of the game is addressed, he will not be interested in a return to Tests.

"I didn't retire from four-day cricket, so I like Test cricket, I like playing the long format of the game but there are certain circumstances that brought me to the conclusion that I don't want to play any Test cricket again," Simmons had told Digicel SportsMax Zone recently.

According to Simmons, the rigours of the long format of the game should be enough to warrant better payment from the powers that be.

"What people have to take into consideration is Test cricket is not easy. It is five days of very hard cricket, it is testing cricket, and when you go out there you put your body on the line for five days," said Simmons.

Bearing that in mind, Simmons is of the belief that it is economically unwise to play Test cricket.

"It is very tough mentally and physically and you just need to be rewarded and paid in a certain way for Test cricket. I don't think that the way that the WIPA [West Indies Players Association] reduced all the match fees for Test cricket, for players who play Test cricket alone, I don't think it is fair," said Simmons.

Simmons decision is not absolute, however, as he does believe that if more respect were paid to Test cricket, he would return to the sport.

"If things were to change, then maybe. I want to play Test cricket but the way that it is now, no."

I can respect Lendl's honesty. At least he isn't going about blaming and scapegoating others for his decision (unlike Dwayne Bravo). I don't agree with Lendl's reasoning since it is quite clearly possible to earn a good living in cricket (even test cricket). When you have match fees of US$5,750 (TT$36,300) (see here: http://wired868.com/2014/10/12/hinds-be ... er-series/) and you pay no income tax on that, then for a place like West Indies you need to keep things in perspective. US$5,750 or TT$36,300 for a match which might last 5 days (but often with the way the West Indian cricketers play it will last 3 days, or maybe 4) is far, far higher than even the average monthly (after tax) income in Trinidad & Tobago (which is one of the richest territories in the WICB). Average monthly salaries in 2008 in T&T varied from TT$2,600 to TT$80,000 depending on the position. The median salary was just TT$2,600 per month. Top executives got TT$80,000. Heads of technical departments in the oil and gas industry earned TT$41,000 per month. Meanwhile West Indian cricketers stand to earn more after tax in about 1 week for what these heads of technical departments earned in 1 month.

The average monthly (after tax) salary is now TT$5,942.25 (see: http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/co ... And+Tobago)

In 2014, West Indies played 10 test matches. So a cricketer would have earned TT$363,000. The tech department heads meanwhile would have earned TT$492,000 (back in 2008 admittedly) but this was likely before tax. Let's assume that the tech department heads now earn double what they did in 2008. So they would now make about TT$1 million before tax. However the cricketer who only plays test cricket will likely also play first class cricket and be paid a yearly salary in the new PCL scheme. So TT$363,000 would not represent their total earnings for the year. And any player who only played test cricket and was good enough to keep getting selected for test cricket would likely have been offered a retainer contract from the WICB. That is now worth around US$100,000 at a minimum (basically TT$600,000) - see: http://gleanerblogs.com/sports/?p=2638

Meanwhile, the cricketer's test match fees alone would amount to 5 times the annual after-tax salary in Trinidad. Personally speaking I know doctors, lawyers, accountants and others throughout the region who do not earn the equivalent of TT$363,000 per year. In fact they earn perhaps between a third to a half of that.

Yes cricketers will end up retiring from cricket at around age 40. But that isn't the end of their working life. There is a life after playing cricket. In coaching. In commentating. In writing. In selecting. In umpiring. In administration. You can even (shockingly) do things outside of cricket entirely (like other normal human beings). If you earn at least twice what many others earn per year and retire from that job at age 40 while others retire at age 65-70 you are coming out ahead of the game. Most West Indians have to make do with far, far less and still manage to save enough for retirement despite working twice as long for half the pay (or even less than half the pay). And unlike the cricketers it is not as if they have an automatic second start at their career after age 40.

An interesting article from cricinfo which attempts to show the "plight" of the West Indian players in terms of their salary, but which if read properly highlights some interesting facts:

- Before the West Indians' pay cut they used to earn MORE than the Australian players in terms of test match fees (US $17,500 for the West Indian players v approximately US $11,200 per home Test or US $15,700 per overseas Test for the Aussie players). Yet in the previous West Indies test matches before the pay cut their performances were pretty much on par with what we have now.

- The overall pay package for the West Indies used to be WAAAAY better than it was for New Zealand (a cricket economy of comparable population size but which is MUCH wealthier than the West Indies) and is now much more in line with that of New Zealand: The WI used to be paid US$17,500 (they now get US$5,000) compared to the New Zealanders getting approximately US$5,800 for test match fees. In terms of retainer contracts the top WI contract is now US$140,000 and the lowest one is US$100,000. Compare this to NZ where the top retainer is US$137,000 and the bottom retainer package is US$56,000. The WI contracts and test match fees are all income tax free. The NZ contracts are not.

What is really interesting is that while the article highlights the "unfair" nature of the pay differential between the West Indians and the Australians, it includes a comparison of the New Zealanders pay packages but seems to ignore that in October and November the New Zealanders toured Australia with a similar discrepancy in their pay scales (between the Aussies and the Kiwis) yet the New Zealanders performed far more competitively than the West Indians have been currently ---- the Kiwis once scored 600+ in one of their tests and scored over 300 runs 4 times in the 5 multi-day matches (8 innings) in which they actually batted and scored over 250 runs in 5 of those 8 innings and took 59 wickets in 9 innings in the 5 matches...compare this to the West Indians who have scored 300+ only once and over 250 runs only thrice in 7 innings so far in 4 multi-day matches and took 23 wickets in 6 innings in the 4 multi-day matches. The Kiwis made higher scores and made high scores (250+ runs in an innings) more frequently than the West Indians and also took more wickets per innings...despite being paid the equivalent amount or less than the West Indians and living in a more expensive society. So clearly what is unfair and unjust now should have been then, unless there is something special about the Kiwis that means they should perform well for less pay....

Article:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/australia-v ... 57013.html

In the article Lloyd also highlights the change in how international cricket has been structured such that whereas before a tour could last from September/October until February, now it is at best maybe 2 months long.

Also there is another article which notes that Gayle and company are not the answer to West Indies cricketing woes and gives some further insight into the behaviour of these players: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricke ... ption.html

I whipped up a couple of graphs today given the delay in play for the final test between Australia and West Indies. These show the scores of the West Indian team for the loss of 7 wickets in each of their innings to date (since the current match is now delayed with the WI on 248/7; hence to make the current match comparable I used the score for the loss of 7 wickets in each of the previous matches). The two graphs show the scores for all the matches (including the tour matches) and just the test matches. And they do seem to show that the WI have been improving over the course of the tour, which supports my theory that if there were more tour matches and practice (A team matches) for the West Indians prior to the first test, then this test series might have seen the West Indies performing better than they have thus far (and this is independent of whether "star" players like Gayle or Dwayne Bravo are in the side).

It's puzzling that the host boards don't seem to realize this when they complain all the time about financial losses from uncompetitive games. Yes, it costs money to organize tour matches, but in the long run it should pay off quite well as the tour matches give local players some international exposure AND aid the international visiting teams to adjust better to local conditions and prepare themselves properly for the official matches. Which in turn will make those matches more interesting and draw in more revenue as more people come to watch them or tune in on television and radio.

Based on the runs scored by the West Indians after the loss of 7 wickets (ranging from just 8 runs for the final 3 wickets to 113 runs), then WI could make anywhere between 255-350 if they get to finish batting in their first innings of the final test. On average they seemed to have made 48 runs for the final 3 wickets in the tests and 63 runs for the final 3 wickets in all test matches (excluding the one where they declared on 303/8). If they manage to this then WI first innings should end at around 294-296.

EDIT: The West Indies finished batting and made 330 all out. Which was in the expected range of 255-350. It was also their highest score for the series (including tour matches).