IT has taken less than two weeks for the elation that swept across the Caribbean in the aftermath of the remarkable fourth Test victory to be replaced by the old, distressing reality.
The triumph at the ARG proved that Australia, as strong and superior as they are, can be beaten by the bold, collective effort that was started by Jermaine
Lawson’s fearsome, if flawed, blitz on the opening day was completed by the wonderful batting in the second innings.
What has happened since in the one-day internationals has been a reversion to familiar mediocrity.
Two of the first three matches that were there to be won against the World Cup champions were frittered away by elementary errors no self-respecting schoolboy would expect to commit without paying with hours of detention.
They have once again emphasised that it is the players themselves who must be held responsible for their deficiencies.
It is the popular tendency to place all the blame for the decline in West Indies cricket on the board. Its well documented bungling has surely contributed but it has nothing to do with the appalling lack of cricketing common sense that dictated so much of the play in the first match at Sabina Park and the third at the Beausejours Stadium û and has done for so long.
Both were there for the taking. Australia didn’t win them, so much as the West Indies lost them.
No amount of structured, expert coaching was required to advise Merv Dillon that the worst, the very worst, he could do in his opening over at Sabina was to send down two wides and two no-balls.
The West Indies had just come off the high of their ARG success.
Brian Lara had won the toss and sent Australia in. A statement had to be made that the West Indies were no longer indisciplined push-overs.
Dillon’s nonsense swiftly put paid to that.
More proof was provided later in the day. With the Australian bowling at their mercy and a packed ground shouting its deafening support, Chris Gayle and Ricardo Powell got themselves out off successive balls to needless strokes.
Gayle sent a catch spiralling to cover, Powell going through to the striker’s end while the ball was in the air to take the next ball. It did not require a semester at the academy or a CXC advanced level pass to know that the worst thing to happen, the very worst, was for a wicket to fall right away.
It was a basic tenet that escaped Powell. After batting as well as he has done for the West Indies, he fired a hook, a stroke he has never perfected, at the next ball and the catch lobbed to the keeper. Suddenly 75 without loss in the 15th over was 75 for two and Australia were back in control.
Even so, when Lara and Devon Smith resumed after rain brought Duckworth/ Lewis into the equation, there was no need of the panicked approach that led to the wickets of Lara and Smith within nine runs and two overs of each other on resumption.
As it was, the margin at the end was a mere two runs.
Had it not been for such mistakes û and for some appalling fielding by Dillon at short third man that yielded six runs through his legs in successive overs, the outcome would have been different.
It is not difficult to imagine what the the psychological effect would have been, on both teams, had the West
Indies won again four days after the Antiguan Test. Instead, a wonderful chance was squandered and, against such efficient opposition, was unlikely to come again.
Yet it did, four days later in St.Lucia. Once more it was wasted through rank carelessness for which no coach, manager or board could be held accountable.
It began immediately as Marlon Samuels, as he too often is, seemed to be located somewhere else in the solar system rather than in the middle of a critical cricket match.
Twice in the opening overs, the ball slipped through his unattentive grasp and Australia right away had eight unearned runs.
Even so, they were restricted to 258 for four by a limited bowling staff, a plainly reachable total for a team with seven specialist batsmen on an ideal pitch, fast outfield and in front of another boisterous, supportive crowd.
As Gayle and Ramnaresh Sarwan accelerated to 67 for one in the 14th over, the Australians were clearly concerned. Desperately, Ricky Ponting tossed the ball to his young off-spinner, Nathan Hauritz, for his first bowl of the tour.
It did not require a message from Gus Logie, written in capital letters and highlighted in red, to advise two young, but experienced, batsman that it was a time for reassessment against a bowler neither had ever seen.
Or perhaps it did for Sarwan charged down to Hauritz’s second ball, tried to lift it over mid-on and offered a low catch to mid-off instead.
Sarwan is an outstanding player. We have known since he was a teenager that he has the potential to become one of the greats. But sporting talent can only be fulfilled if combined with reasonable intelligence.
Any batsman who can be out to the same shot, the hook, seven times in a brief Test career needs to seriously examine himself. His soft dismissal on Wednesday was further evidence of someone who doesn’t place enough value on his wicket.
Gayle is another of the young brigade who has not made enough of his ability. Like Sarwan and
Samuels, concentration and a failure to appraise the current situation are his problems.
Sarwan was out to the second ball he faced from Hauritz. Gayle didn’t wait that long to try to attack him.
He went after his first and slapped it to point.
Such cricketing ignorance has evidenced itself throughout both Test and one-day series is other ways. Over and over, especially in the Tests, batsmen fell after an interval or a refreshment break, failing to refocus on the job at hand.
As in the Tests, dolly catches have been spilled, the dolliest at Queen’s Park yesterday by Powell, the best of the fielders, and runs given away, in the field and between the wickets, by sheer laziness.
The Australians, man for man, talent for talent, are not demonstrably better than those who wear the maroon.
It is their mastering of the basics, their commitment and their appreciation of what the game is all about that make them superior. And we’re just spinning top in mud until our players follow suit. That, on all recent evidence, is not likely to be any time soon.