Staff Writer – Archi
West Indies cricket news. West Indies cricket touched a new low when they went down to Ireland in the World Cup on Monday. Forty years ago, the West Indies won the first World Cup and then defended it four years later before finishing runners-up in 1983.
Since then, their one-day pickings have been mighty slim, a Champions Trophy victory in 2004 and a Twenty20 world title in 2012.
Clive Lloyd, who skippered the West Indies to their 1975 and 1979 world titles and is now the head of selectors, believes the bish-bash but lucrative Twenty20, the sport’s shortest format, has diluted the talent pool, narrowed concentration and diminished skills.
“The players earn a good wage. They have the choice to play Test cricket or T20,” said Lloyd.
“We are small islands and if you get a whole host of money, you are a king. This T20 competition has messed our cricket up. We have contracts, probably not as exorbitant as others, but they are getting good money. It doesn’t seem playing for our country is paramount where these players are concerned.”
Former great pacer Michael Holding slammed the Caribbean’s show as a “little bit pathetic”. It was a little bit pathetic to be honest,” said Holding. “I’ve been saying since this World Cup started that 300 on a good pitch here in New Zealand or Australia is just a par score, irrespective of who you’re playing against,” he added.
“I do not understand how the West Indies could ever think that with just over 300 runs they would automatically win,” insisted Holding, a member of the West Indies side that won the 1979 World Cup final.
Holding said the inability to adjust to match circumstances had hurt the West Indies.
Clive Lloyd. Photo courtesy www1.skysports.com
“They cannot take things for granted,” the 61-year-old Jamaican told a cricket magazine. “You should be able to think for yourself, ‘Okay we got a reasonable score but we still have a fight on our hands and we still have to go out there and perform’.”
Money — or often the lack of it — has been a key factor in the decline and fall of West Indies cricket in recent years. In 2009, the majority of senior players went on strike over contracts leaving selectors to name Floyd Reifer, who last played a Test 10 years earlier, as captain. A 16-year-old Kraigg Brathwaite was also called up.
Bangladesh, themselves often mediocre makeweights, swept the Test and ODI series as a result. Former fast bowler Ian Bishop cited financial concerns, as well as the declining importance of the sport in the region, as factors behind the slump.
“It’s a reflection in the decay of values in general in the Caribbean, in all walks of life. People are running after the dollar,” said Bishop. Such has been the long-running saga of decline that Bishop was identifying as the problems in 2011 — all of which are still plaguing the game. “Cricket demands hard work and commitment. Now, a lot of younger men are happier playing basketball under the lights at night. Cricket is no longer a way of life in the Caribbean,” he said.
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