It’s not been a happy return to India for West Indies, who once held a proud 14-5 Test record in this country but have lost nine of their last 11 matches, six by an innings.
The crushing innings-and-140-run surrender in Ahmedabad last week was their sixth loss on the bounce in India. One has to go all the way back to December 1994 for their last Test victory on Indian soil while their last series triumph here came in 1983, when they stormed to a 3-0 rout in a six-match
showdown.
Cricketing world in hope
The cricket world has been longing for a strong and vibrant West Indies for several years. To watch their pace merchants, assembled assiduously in the mid-1970s by Clive Lloyd, unleash their fury was exhilarating, even when it came at India’s expense. Their unending line of attacking batters, none more destructive than Viv Richards, delighted audiences with their breathtaking stroke-making, which often overshadowed their technical expertise.
West Indian players of a current vintage don’t measure up to those exalted standards; it will be naive to expect benchmarks set by maestros of the past to be emulated, let alone surpassed. But to see them give in without a semblance of a fight was disappointing. It must be particularly dispiriting for the heroes of yesteryear, a proud bunch that can do little but look on helplessly.
Various reasons have been proffered for West Indies’s steep and seemingly endless decline as a Test force, primary among them the lack of financial security that has driven numerous talented players to franchise-based T20 leagues around the world. As Roston Chase, the beleaguered captain, pointed out after their three-day capitulation at the Narendra Modi Stadium, players have the right to decide how to earn their livelihood. It’s tempting to expect everyone to be as invested in the five-day game as once used to be the case, but that is not realistic. Other avenues of making a living have diminished the attraction of Test cricket, true, but infrastructural and systemic apathy too has contributed to a marked absence of sustained powerhouse performances.
Glimpses of talent
From time to time, West Indies have provided glimpses of their natural skills, not least during their victories in Brisbane and Multan split by 12 months. The first was fashioned by Shamar Joseph, the tearaway quick who, like Alzarri Joseph, isn’t available for this short series owing to injury. The second, this January, came courtesy a seven-wicket haul in the second innings by left-arm spinner Jomel Warrican, who is Chase’s deputy but endured a difficult time in Ahmedabad, like his other bowling colleagues.
The Arun Jaitley Stadium offers the visitors one last chance (in the near future) to pull off a gargantuan upset. West Indies hold a 2-1 edge in Tests at this venue (formerly called the Feroz Shah Kotla), the second of those in November 1987 on the back of a magnificent unbeaten 109 by Richards which helped make light of a target of 276. If, somehow, Chase’s embattled troops can invoke the spirit of that intimidating outfit…