Resurgent Windies

I haven’t written a post on sports for quite a while. Sports had gotten a bit boring for a while.  Although I watched IPL every night this season, the purist in me wasn’t exactly exhilarated about even last-ball finishes. Rafa won the French Open, but one can watch only so much of the baseline oriented game without getting tired. But last month, there were lots of action and plenty of excitement.  

Spain absolutely drubbed Italy into submission in the Euro Finals, Serena came back from near-retirement to win the Women’s Singles and King Fed was back to his regal best at Wimbledon. Sri Lankans proved to be a better all-round side and put it past an assembled Pakistan side. Just when we thought Lee-Hesh had finally made up, they made another public hash of their relationship. England once again proved why they are a fine professional side by beating both Windies and Aussies fairly comfortably. But then, not everything was along expected lines and therein lays the beauty of sport. 

If I was a Ladbroke regular, I’d bet on Windies to win the next World Cup. While fanatics are everywhere and many fellow countrymen will be aghast at this blasphemy, let me try to submit logic to my tall claim.  

In my recent logic notes in the Corporate World, I’ve often begun with a ‘Background’. So, here it is : Windies ruled the cricketing world for the best part of a decade and a half between the mid-70s to the late 80s. During this time, under the able leadership of Big Cat, Clive Lloyd, they had such gifted batsmen, destroyers of all kinds of bowling, and masters of all they surveyed. If the bowling side was lucky to get Greenidge or Haynes early and open up one end, they’d have to survive rampaging ‘Smoking Joe’ King Viv, graceful Larry Gomes, Lloyd himself, silky Jeff Dujon, and at different times a stubborn Kallicharan or a gutsy Gus Logie to get to the tail. Seldom did bowling sides look forward to facing them twice for fear of being humiliated. When it came to facing their bowling, Big Bird ‘Joel Garner, ‘Rolls Royce’ Mike Holding, lethal Malcolm Marshall, the fearsome Roberts, with Colin Croft or Winston Davis or Wayne Daniel for company, ensured that batsmen became truly religious.  

Since then they’d fallen apart – true there has been the occasional belligerence of a Richie Richardson or the greatest of all batsmen who never became great, Carl Hooper, or the fighting spirit of Shivnarine Chanderpaul, but calypso cricket had lost its glory. Their bowling sides had Ambrose and Walsh, and very little thereafter. What’s worse, their fielding standards fell too. Amidst all this, they had their administrators who hastened their fall from grace. 

Cut to the present. Gayle is back (and how!), and he had Simmons and Dwayne Smith for company in the top 3 in the recent one-dayers against Kiwis. Darren Bravo is truly gifted, but he couldn’t get a look-in to their one-day side. His bits-and-pieces brother Dwayne, big-hitting Pollard, the always talented now dependable Marlon Samuels and the all-rounders Russell, Sammy, Ramdin all have the ability to destroy any opposing attack (if it doesn’t swing, that is). Tino Best, Fidel Edwards, Ravi Rampaul, Andre Russell, Sammy, Sunil Narine, Samuels, Bravo and Pollard can all bowl economically and effectively.  

Caribbean cricket is a heady mix, constituting their rhythm, their beats, their music, and their unique style. Their batsmen are loved for the way they twirl their bats or chew their gum or arch their backs when they essay their shots; their bowlers for their athleticism and skill; their fielders for their swoop on the run; their crowd for their unbridled enthusiasm. When they get it right, no cricket fan can stay seated. My word! it looks like the time that they get it more often right than wrong is coming again.