Editorial | What the West Indies’ Test team really lacks

Roston Chase, the captain of the West Indies’ Test team, is right that the Caribbean’s cricket infrastructure lags behind what’s available to most of the region’s international counterparts.

While these deficiencies may factor in the team’s generally poor showing over more than two decades, they are not the primary cause of its underperformance across all formats of the game.

Two events in international cricket in the past week, one of which involved the West Indies, perhaps offer a more coherent and conclusive explanation of the West Indies crisis, as well as the pathway to its solution.

In shorthand, it’s the word ‘character’.

A major part of rectifying the problem must include those who administer the sport in the Caribbean, including the captains of the regional teams developing a new and honest vocabulary for communicating about performances and outcomes.

Chase’s comment about the region’s facilities for cricket, and the conditions in which the domestic game is played, came in October in Ahmedabad, India after his team had been defeated by an innings and 140 runs during what was an eventual 3-0 whitewash in the series.

Frankly, most people didn’t expect too much difference when the West Indies moved on to New Zealand for a series of T20, One Day Internationals and Test matches. New Zealand duly won the T20 series 3-1 (one was rained out) and the ODIs 3-0.

It is too often the case of the Test side for there to be fleeting, good performances, perhaps disciplined batting or bowling for a couple of sessions of a match, only for the team to fall back to perennial bad habits.

Nonetheless, what happened in Christchurch last week, in the second innings of the first Test match, especially the disciplined batting of all-rounder Justin Greaves and fast bowler Kemar Roach, ought to be analysed and studied by the team for their application of patience and display of grit.

In other words, they demonstrated the kind of character that is mostly lacking in West Indies teams, with their tendency to collapse at the first obstacle or fold at the earliest application of significant pressure.

NOTORIOUS FRAGILITY

At one point in the fourth day of the match, and facing an improbable target of 531 to win the match, the West Indies were 74 for four, seemingly headed for a routine defeat – until Shai Hope (140) found a reliable partner in fellow Barbadian, Justin Greaves. They ended the day with the West Indies 212 for four, with Hope and Greaves undefeated at 116 and 55, respectively.

Hope went relatively quickly on the fifth day and was soon followed by wicket-keeper/batsman, Tevin Imlach. Notably, the Hope/Greaves partnership was worth 196 runs.

Though in a better position than before, given the team’s notorious fragility, no West Indies supporter would relax. It might all collapse as usual.

Instead, for half the post-lunch session, and until the match was called, Greaves (202 not out) and Roach (58 not out) batted and batted. Roach made mistakes but settled.

Often, statistics don’t fully capture the full picture of the moment. These do: the 452 scored by the West Indies was the second highest fourth innings score in a Test; and the 163.1 overs faced by the West Indies was the longest fourth innings ever by the team.

Greaves’ double century was the seventh in the fourth innings of a Test match. He faced 388, nearly half the amount he faced over his, up to then, combined 12 Test matches. Roach, who faced 233 deliveries, scored five runs of his last 104 deliveries. At one stage, he didn’t score for 72 balls.

In the last session, requiring 132 to win off a potential 31 overs, the arithmetic suggested that the West Indies had a chance of victory. Greaves and Roach chose discipline and displayed character.

REAL AND DEEPER PROBLEM

Not only did they defy all that New Zealand threw at them, but, at crucial moments, it was the New Zealanders who cracked. Which is the fundamental matter underpinning the second cricket event last week: England’s second eight-wicket beating by Australia in their Ashes series, and Ben Stokes, the England captain’s assessment after the defeat.

England, Stokes said, had in the high-pressure moments in the matches been “guilty of letting the pressure, the occasion, get to us”.

According to Stokes, despite the “incredible talent” possessed by Australia, the difference between the teams wasn’t skill.

He said: “But, if you can’t put it down to skill, then you start to wonder what it is. Do we need to start to think about what mentality we are taking into those pressure moments? Because, when we are on top, we are great. But, when the game is neck-and-neck, we are not coming out on top enough … .”

Ditto to the West Indies on the question of talent. The real and deeper problem lies elsewhere. And it’s not primarily infrastructure.

Stokes also said: “There is a saying that … Australia is not for weak men. A dressing room where I am captain is not for weak men.”

Ben Stokes’ frankness will hopefully reverberate in the West Indies dressing room.